Long Beach Food Scene: Last Call—or Long Beach Last Call if you wanna keep it simple—will kick off March 1 and run through March 10 with a series of events on each day that celebrates the city’s rich bar culture, community, and its workers.
From industry only events and parties aboard the Queen Mary to dive bar bingo and proper Irish coffee lessons, Long Beach Last Call will celebrate the bar culture in a way no event has.
What is Long Beach Last Call?
After the success of my restaurant week last year during August, Long Beach Food Scene Week, bar owners and tenders rightfully asked: “What about a week for us?”
So I decided to oblige and present Long Beach Last Call, a ten-day long celebration of Long Beach’s amazing bar culture, it’s even more amazing workers, and the industry that often goes without recognition as one of our city’s largest economic and social drivers.
Thanks to my collaborators—Scott Lennard of RNDC and Chris Lewis of Nosotros Tequila y Mezcal—we’ve created some 15 events across the ten-day span on Last Call. To say the least, we’ve worked our asses off and we hope you’ll come out and celebrate with us (that is, if we make it to Day 10 alive).
Are there any special cocktail menus for Long Beach Last Call—or just events?
There are not just events—there are special cocktail menus too!
Participating places that will offer special, elevated cocktail menus include:
- The Attic
- Baby Gee
- Bamboo Club
- Bungalow Lounge
- El Barrio Cantina
- La Traviata
- Marlena
- Michael’s on Naples
- Legends
- The Ordinarie
- Panxa
- Port City Tavern
- Mezcalero
- Roe
- Rosemallows
- Roxanne’s
- Selva
- Shirley’s Temple
- The Social List
- The Stave
- Viaje
- The Wicked Wolf
- Wood & Salt
Also, these bars will be offering drink specials throughout the event’s span:
- Blondie’s
- The Brit
- Crow’s
- Dempsey’s
- The Falcon
- Interlude
- Kennedy’s
- Mineshaft
- Poor Richard’s
- Reno Room
- The Stache
- Sweet Water Saloon
- Taco Beach
- Tap 24
- Tracy’s Bar & Grill
- V-Room
And what are the events for Long Beach Last Call?
We have 15 events across 10 days. Check ’em out!
Friday, Mar. 1: Kick-off party at Bungalow Lounge (presented by Nosotros & Cointreau), 7PM – 2AM
Join us as we kick off the first Long Beach Food Scene: Last Call celebration, a 10-day stretch of uplifting our bar culture, industry, and the people attached to it.
Proudly sponsored by Bungalow Lounge, Nosotros Tequila y Mezcal, and Cointreau, Bungalow’s special “Latin 75” cocktail will benefit local nonprofit 4GIRLS, an organization dedicated to empowering middle school girls in order to move them into the future as we celebrate Women’s History Month.
This event is free and solely for those age 21 or older.
Friday, Mar. 1 – Monday, Mar. 4: Grab your Dive Bar Crawl Bingo card
If you would like to print your bingo card, click here—otherwise, you can pick one up at The Grasshopper, The Stache, The Wicked Wolf, Port City Tavern, Roxanne’s, Dempsey’s, Baby Gee, The Bamboo Club, or Crow’s.
In this celebration of our 47 License Club—that is, our finest dive bars—you can grab a bingo card at participating bars and hit up all of Long Beach’s finest, we-only-serve-alcohol joints. Check off your card by visiting those establishments Mar. 1-4.
Come Monday, Mar. 4 at Roxanne’s, you can show your bingo card in order to compete for Fernet swag, including limited edition Fernet skateboard. For more info on the winners event, click here.
Saturday, Mar. 2: Taste of Mexico: An Agave Spirits Experience at Panxa (presented by Siete Leguas), 3PM – 5PM [SOLD OUT]
This event is currently sold out.
We’ve added more distilleries for our Long Beach Last Call agave spirits tasting at Panxa Cocina, with over ten Mexican distillers coming on board for the $30 tasting: G4, Cazcanes, Siete Leguas, Nosotros, LALO, Producer Mezcal, Tequila Ocho, Mezcal Vago, Jose Cuervo Reserva, 400 Conejos, and Don Julio, who will be showing us their new Alma Miel release. Likely to be approaching some 30-plus iterations of tequila and mezcal, along with some bites, for $30. Join us!
Tickets to this event are $30 per person. For tickets, click here.
Saturday, Mar. 2: “Lyrical Genius: A Zero Proof Game Night” at Shirley’s Temple, 5:30PM – 7:30PM
Listen to instrumental lyrics and guess the songs while exploring Shirley Temple’s zero-proof mocktail flight tastings with rounds of bingo in-between. Hosted by Shirley’s Temple owner Stephanie “Essie” Evans.
Saturday, Mar. 2: “Studio 534” – disco’n’funk aboard the Queen Mary (presented by Hendrick’s, Tito’s, Woodford & High Noon), 8PM – 11PM [SOLD OUT]
This event is currently sold out as all 1,000 RSVP spots have been booked. At this time, due to the extremely large response, we will not be creating a wait list.
Join us as we celebrate the town’s highest royal, The Queen Mary, as we invade the Observation Bar to bring in a little funk: Taking a nod to Netflix’s “Griselda”—in which every club scene was shot aboard the ship—we are turning to the late 1970s and early 1980s to get down in a way that might even offend the Queen’s original guests.
DJ Tomas De Los Reyes will be spinning all night while Hendricks, Woodford Reserve, and High Noon will have a plethora of stock to loosen your limbs.
Sunday, Mar. 3: The Proper Irish Coffee: A Warm Cocktail Class at The Auld Dubliner (presented by Tullamore Dew), Noon – 2PM [SOLD OUT]
This event is currently sold out.
Too many Americans think an Irish coffee is some type of Irish cream liqueur thrown into coffee—but you’re a wee bit misdirected.
Join us as we explore the proper Irish coffee at the city finest pub, The Auld Dubliner, with the Tullamore Dew brand ambassador on hand to not only teach you how to make you but send you home with your own proper Irish coffee glass, some other parting gifts, and the knowledge as to how to make one of the finest warm cocktails on earth.
This will be a ticketed event with a limited capacity and is solely for those over the age of 21. Tickets are $20. To purchase them, click here.
Sunday, Mar. 3: Industry Only event at Baby Gee (presented by Nosotros), 5PM – 7PM
This industry only event will allow the best and finest of the front of house—GMs, bartenders, barbacks, beverage directors…—to network and get to know each other while sipping on hosted Nosotros cocktails at Spirited Award finalist Baby Gee Bar.
This event is free and solely for general managers, bartenders, bar program managers, beverage directors, or other front of house employees over the age of 21.
BAR OWNER WANTING TO INVITE YOUR BEST GM, BARTENDER, OR OTHERWISE? CONTACT BRIAN ADDISON: brian@longbeachize.com
Monday, Mar. 4: Big Red Bus dive bar crawl (presented by Fernet), 3:30PM to 6:30PM [SOLD OUT]
UPDATE: This event is sold out and no longer taking RSVPs. Your RSVP does not guarantee a spot on the bus; first come, first served.
Plan on participating in Dive Bar Crawl Bingo? You’ll wanna make your life a bit easier by joining this complementary Big Red Bus tour to as many dive bars on the nine-bar card that is required to win prizes at the winners party at Roxanne’s later in the evening on Monday, Mar. 4.
The crawl on the bus will begin at Crow’s in Naples at 3:30PM and end at Roxanne’s no later than 7PM. Snacks and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided on the bus during the crawl. And yes, you will guaranteed cross at least one line on your card during the crawl.
Monday, Mar. 4: Dive Bar Crawl Bingo winners party at Roxanne’s (presented by Fernet), 7PM – 11PM
In this celebration of our 47 License Club—that is, our finest dive bars—you can grab a bingo card at participating bars and hit up all of Long Beach’s finest, we-only-serve-alcohol joints. Check off your card by visiting those establishments Mar. 1-4. Those participants will be announced Feb. 26.
Come Monday, Mar. 4 at Roxanne’s, you can show your bingo card in order to compete for Fernet swag, including limited edition Fernet skateboard.
Tuesday, Mar. 5: Bring on Les Queers: A Madonna vinyl listening session at The Social List (presented by Good Luck Vinyl Club, St. George & Nosotros) 6PM-10PM
For those that don’t know, the Good Luck Vinyl Club at The Social List is dedicated to one thing: Highlighting a specific album of a significant artist and listening to it front-to-back on vinyl on of the most badass hi-fi sound systems in the city.
And yes, Les Gays, we are doing Madonna’s super divisive, super controversial, house-meets-R&B early ’90s album “Erotica.” Following the listening session, we will listen to the Queen of Pop’s discography while also discussing where women who age stand in the pop realm.
THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT. (And hey, your ticket includes a drink, so…) Click here for tickets.
Tuesday, Mar. 5: Big Gay Bar Crawl on Broadway (presented by Pink Whitney & High Noon)
After our Madonna vinyl listening party at The Social List, we ask late night revelers to hop on down to Broadway to partake in a good ol’, big gay bar crawl, starting at The Brit and then venturing to Mineshaft, The Falcon, Sweet Water Saloon, and Broadway Bar.
This event is free and solely for those age 21 or older.
Wednesday, Mar. 6: Italian wine tasting at Michael’s on Naples (presented by Kobrand), 5PM – 7PM [Almost sold out]
Hospitality and wine guru Massimo Arrone of Michael’s on Naples will host a wine tasting—with a few bites—that goes from a champagne toast to exploring a white wine and two red wines from Italy.
THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT. For tickets, click here.
Wednesday, Mar. 6: Women Who Whiskey at BLACK Bar (presented by Uncle Nearest), 7PM – 9PM [SOLD OUT]
This event is currently sold out.
Women Who Whiskey’s Long Beach chapter—led by longtime lover of all things whiskey Stacey Smith-Clark—is one of our city’s best groups. To continue celebrating Women’s History Month, we are moving the women who love their whiskey away from their historical home (at the much-loved Hawk) and to a happily women-owned bar, BLACK (owned by Shannon McManus and Bethany Black).
At this event, we will be happily joined by a representative of Uncle Nearest, founded Fawn Weaver and becoming the nation’s best selling Black- and Black woman-owned distillery. We will taste their offerings while learning about this groundbreaking distillery.
Thursday, Mar. 7: Tiki Cocktail Competition at Bamboo Club (presented by Cutwater), 6PM – 9PM [SOLD OUT]
UPDATE: This event is sold out and no longer taking RSVPs. You can, however, still attend. (Given this was a free RSVP, some may not show up. We will accommodate who we can!)
Last Call continues its 10-day, 15-event celebration of Long Beach’s bar culture and the people who make it happen. We have gathered some of Long Beach’s finest cocktail concoctioneers to compete in an all-out brawl in developing what some select judges will determine is the par-none newest tiki cocktail. (And yes, guests will also decide a People’s Choice while freely tasting each competing cocktail.)
Along with a DJ and battle rapper for entertainment, Tomas Delos Reyes of the Long Beach Bartenders Guild will be on hand as MC for the evening and Bamboo Club head bartender Dustin Rodriguez will head judging for the competition.
This is a FREE EVENT BUT RSVP IS REQUIRED. Click here for your free ticket to secure your RSVP.
Friday, Mar. 8: Long Beach Food Scene Meet-Up: DTLB Crawl (presented by 400 Conejos), 7PM – Midnight
We had some grand ideas for this—see, between Altar Society Brewing on Pine Avenue and ISM Brewing on the Promenade, there is a development. That development, when it opens, will have a pathway connecting the backend of Altar and the frontend of ISM—but that will not happen by the time of this event.
But fear not: Altar (7PM-8PM) still has, well, a full bar and brewery and the Promenade still has ISM (8PM-9PM), The Stave (9PM-10PM), The Ordinarie (10PM-11PM), and Rosemallows (11PM – midnight).
Come as the rowdy and very vocal (but kind) peeps at the Long Beach Food Scene gather first at Altar and then elsewhere to celebrate one of our most cocktail- and culinary-rich spaces in the city.
This event is free and solely for those age 21 or older.
Saturday, Mar. 9: To Spirit or Not to Spirit? A Zero-Proof Tasting & Discussion (presented by Free Spirits), 2PM to 4PM
Sobriety, in all its layers and forms, doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from the hospitality industry—and there are distinctive ways to navigate it in order to do so, whether you’re looking to simply cut down on your alcohol intake or practice full on sobriety, there are options and pathways.
We are hosting Noah, bar manager at Baby Gee; Khristian, restaurant general manager; Essie, zero-proof bar owner; and Thea, owner of Wicked Wolf, which doesn’t permit their bartenders to drink.
This is not an event to say sobriety is superior; this is an event to let those in the industry know that there are ways in which you can still be a part of the workplace you love on levels that adapt to your needed self-care. We will be exploring creating menus while sober, managing while sober, the new world of sober bars, and owning a bar while maintaining a staff that works sober.
Sunday, Mar. 10: Industry Appreciation Event at Legends (presented by Tito’s), 6PM-8PM
This industry only event will let those within the hospitality field freely celebrate on the second floor of Legends while happily sipping on cocktails from Tito’s. The public is welcomed to attend on the first floor.
This event is free and solely for those age 21 or older.
