After scoring an acknowledgement in its first year of operation and yet again last year from the prestigious Tale of the Cocktail Foundation’s Spirited Awards, Gianna Johns and Daniel Flores, the owners of Baby Gee Bar, have done it again. Known as the bar world’s Oscars, Baby Gee is named one of the Top 10 best bars in the West for the second year in a row, following their best new bar recognition back in 2023.
Why Baby Gee—or any Long Beach bar—being recognized by Spirited is culturally important.
In Gianna’s words, awards are not “why we do what we do day-to-day—but they certainly inspire and motivate the hell out of me to go harder.
“To us, the Spirited Awards are one of the most coveted programs to be recognized by,” Gianna said. “I want to live up to the recognition for our community in Long Beach and the bar industry as a whole.”
The hospitality industry is an economic backbone—surely, there is little need to emphasize that point. It’s also an extremely tight-knit community, particularly here in Long Beach. And when it comes to the larger lens focusing on food and drink hospitality, the focus on the former while lumping in the latter rather than highlighting it as its own entity is certainly cause for frustration.
Baby Gee has helped alleviate this dismissal or under-sizing of the cocktail community by garnering recognition for the city from its peers. And Spirited? It is the highest recognition a bar can receive from its peers or otherwise. But the fact that it is from peers makes it all the sweeter.
Baby Gee has the city’s most aggressively forward-thinking, consistently changing cocktail programs—and it reflects a larger growth in the bar culture here in the city.
If 2024 were to reflect anything for Baby Gee, it was that it was its most ambitious year to date. Some 50 cocktails spread across various menus. Their summer and winter cocktail menus? Those two alone offered some 30 drinks that melded Long Beach history, nods to cocktail classics, and Gianna’s continually challenging palate. And during the holidays, Baby Gee was offering its winter menu along with its holiday menu simultaneously.
If you were to include their special days—St. Patrick’s, their collaboration with Hamburgers Nice, their anniversary party…—that number reaches over 100 various cocktails.
And it reflects a larger shift in the Long Beach cocktail culture. And that is the fact that it is only getting better.
“Long Beach has one of the best bar cultures in the country and it deserves to be recognized as such. We are so proud to add to that culture in our own way and to bring cocktails to center stage.”
Long Beach’s cocktail culture has never been better.
Long Beach cocktails and spirit choices—and its mocktail counterpart—have never been stronger, with bar managers and tenders creating a new era of hospitality and drinkability. And it isn’t just Gianna at Baby Gee. Emilee Comeau at Roe. Or Dave Castillo at Marlena. Kevin Lee at Tokyo Noir. And Jocelyn Jolly at Michael’s on Naples. Priscilla In at The Stache. Nathaniel Ochoa at The Attic. Kayla Bohner at The Ordinarie. Bryce Kaesman at Panxa Cocina. Mike Bukowski at Selva. Bradley Eston at Port City Tavern…
The list goes on and on. And the quality and vigor of Baby Gee is a key cog that inspires it.
Baby Gee Bar is located at 1227 E. 4th St.
