The Social List is participating in Long Beach Food Scene Week 2024, a ten-day celebration of our city’s food culture with over 60 restaurants involved. To check out their menu, click here. For more information on LBFSW, click here.
I have always celebrated The Social List for what it is: a neighborhood eatery and bar. It is the place you want to go to often, an increasingly endangered ideal in today’s food world. And coming in on its tenth birthday, the Retro Row staple has seen a seemingly endless amounts of varying menus while building up a legion that—unlike many other other restaurants—visits multiple times a month.
“We’ve never been about reinventing the wheel,” co-owner Chef Luis Navarro said. “I love the new kids that are coming in with some stellar food—and they’re needed. Marlena, Bar Becky—amazing restaurants. But The Social List isn’t a place where you go once or twice a year. It really is that neighborhood hangout.”
The Social List has evolved to become a neighborhood staple with loads of comfort food.
The Social List was, if anything, a food experiment for Retro Row. Taking over what used to be a custom framing shop, the wordplay on “socialism” was supposed to evoke a mixture of Eastern European aesthetics with contemporary European bars and bistros, where patrons can quickly bounce from joint to joint. They eat a little here and drink a bit more there. It was to be a part of a crawl of sorts for 4th Street.
But it has developed into a fully enveloped neighborhood hangout over the years. Regulars have regular items known by servers. Drinkers—be they beer seekers, winos, or cocktailers—have found their second home thanks to an ever-evolving list of brews, wines, and spirits. And that consistency with patrons is likely due to their array of menus over the years that continue to offer up new things but also remain Social List-y.
A Japanese-influenced menu was developed pre-pandemic but not fully realized until the summer of 2021. Match IPAs and Japanese whiskies were paired with Japanese brisket and chili burgers. An Americana-inspired menu spanned styles and flavors, harkening to 90s faves like spinach artichoke dip, deviled eggs, and Kung Pao cauliflower.
It’s food that is familiar in some sense but well-made and, if nostalgic, at least contemporized to make it feel current. And The Social List’s new menu is no exception.
The new menu at the 4th Street staple is just really solid, comforting food—something that is outright strange to lift a nose up to.
In all frankness, there is a strange dichotomy in today’s food world, likely a more extensive reflection of the times as a whole. And that dichotomy is an extreme: Either high end or Taco Bell. That sweet middle ground isn’t as desirable as it was since diners would instead blow their entire check on an “experience” or pay a small amount for a ton of food that, well, lacks quality. This joins an entire array of other things facing restaurants in our post-pandemic reality.
The Social List, in what it is now its unique position, aims to be that sweet middle—and its food reflects that.
There’s the return of Chef Luis’s masterful coconut onion rings. Born out of the pandemic when Portuguese Bend still existed, these masterful rings of sweet’n’earthy make them one of the best versions of one of the most comforting American sides, offering a sense of comfort in every bite.
Calamari steak sticks. Poke nachos (that come with the actual amount of wonton chips you need). Beautiful takes on burgers (including a genuinely delectable blue cheese’n’fig arrangement and an ode to the Coco’s-slash-Marie-Calender’s staple that was a teriyaki burger). A solid meatball sandwich (whose meatballs were far superior to a recent high-end restaurant I visited).Â
If this doesn’t warm your soul, your $150-per-person meal awaits you at plenty of other spaces. But if you play your cards right, there’s room for everything.
The Social List has seamlessly blended Long Beach culture for a decade.
The return of Havana Nights marks a definitive soft spot for The Social List. The (literal) week of the pandemic’s start was the very week the restaurant was bringing back its monthly celebration of cars, culture, and cuisine. It was to run through nearly the entirety of 2020, bringing back a tradition that 4th Street had fallen in love with.
“We’re celebrating a few things on Sept. 27,” Chef Luis said. “We’re celebrating our tenth anniversary and we’re celebrating our community in a way that reminds us where we started, where we once were. I don’t mean that in the regressive sense but in the celebratory. Let’s take over the block. Let’s crowd the sidewalks. Havana Nights represents just that.”
This isn’t the first time the space has opted for culture over pure operations.
They’ve long hosted artists as a makeshift gallery, from its first-ever show featuring Hely Omar Gonzalez to showcasing photographers like the vastly underrated Jose Cordon to hosting Jason Lee (yes, that Jason Lee). They launched the Good Luck Vinyl Club in the name of hi-fi love. And that has extended into “Discos y Vino” that features $5 house wine pours and mini-charcuterie boards atop your vino if you choose. And I suggest you do.
There’s a pure factor of fun here that shouldn’t be denied.
Yes, they are participating in Long Beach Food Scene Week 2024—and they’re bringing back a fan favorite.
I have found that a chef has few moments of relishing in their work than through the power of taking it away. It can be something as simple as a special running its short course, never to be seen again. Or just simply remove an item from a menu because, creatively, they need to move on.
Either way, the return of The Social List’s Media Noche Cuban sandwich for Long Beach Food Scene Week 2024—running through Aug. 18—will surely be welcomed by its legions of dedicated patrons.
One of the best versions of the plate to hit Long Beach, the sandwich is a reminder of the space’s decade-long dedication to comfort food and comfort spaces. Can we get an amen?
The Social List is located at 2105 E. 4th St.
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