Walking down Broadway in Long Beach, just east of the Gayborhood where Wild Chive sits at Molino Avenue in Bluff Heights, one sign is hard to miss in their window. “Vizzi: Eat like you give a damn.”
Now operating as an evening residency inside The Wild Chive after its daytime brunch service, owner Akhil Viz wasn’t interested in simply opening another vegan restaurant. He wanted to create something he believes Long Beach doesn’t yet have: a space where the food is merely one expression of a much broader philosophy.
“I just want to have conversations with people who are willing to hear,” Akhil said. “My mission is to serve… If I can have a conversation with someone and say, ‘Is there a need? What’s the justification?’ and they walk away thinking, ‘You know what? Akhil had a good point. I should think about it.’ My job is done. Whether Vizzi survives or not? I don’t give a shit. If I’m out of business next month? I don’t give a shit. But if I’ve had one conversation—if I have one person think about it—I have served my purpose.”
What Vizzi represents on a fundamental level…
That mission permeates everything about Vizzi. The menu isn’t merely vegan; it is intentionally “plant-forward,” built around Hindu concepts like Ahimsa (nonviolence), Sattva (purity and harmony), and Sangha (community).
Even the restaurant’s language avoids conventional branding. Guests are invited into what Akhil calls “a communal space for recalibration and awakening,” while dishes like The Chariot Burger, The Infinite Burrito and Hari Bowl are named after spiritual concepts rather than clever marketing.
Instead of offering alcohol, the room is filled with kirtan—devotional music meant to create what Akhil calls a “presence-first” environment. It is less a restaurant as a commodity than a restaurant as a conversation.
That philosophy stems directly from Akhil’s own story.
Originally from Gibraltar, on Spain’s southern tip, Akhil moved to Southern California roughly a decade ago. Raised vegetarian through both his ethnic heritage and Hindu faith, he says he had “never knowingly eaten meat.” But vegetarianism wasn’t enough anymore after learning more about industrial dairy production.
“I came across an article that said India is now the second largest exporter of beef,” Akhil said. “That shocked me… That’s when I was also exposed to what happens in the dairy industry. It’s awful. And I cried for days. I looked at myself in the mirror… and I said, ‘If I am a person who believes in these values, now that I know what happens, I cannot continue consuming those products.'”
He immediately gave up dairy and dived into veganism. And the transition also exposed something unexpected.
“When I went out to eat, I very quickly realized that, as a vegetarian, my options were pretty wide-ranging. Restaurants can accommodate you. As a vegan, my options shrank. So I said, ‘Okay, can I change this? Can I do something different?'”
The shifting evolution of vegan eatery Vizzi in Long Beach…
Akhil’s original hope was to test the concept inside the former Sweetfin space on Second Street—a small footprint that would have allowed him to experiment without assuming enormous financial risk. Before he could move forward, however, another tenant secured the space.
Then came news that The Wild Chive was preparing to close, but it ultimately decided to continue as a daytime brunch operation while seeking another path forward. Akhil sent emails, waited, and eventually received the response that would define Vizzi’s first chapter.
“They said, ‘We actually still want to continue operating for brunch, but if you want to do the dinner service…’ And I was like, ‘Of course.’ I would love to start there and just see how things go.”
That arrangement has also allowed Vizzi to ease into brick-and-mortar ownership rather than immediately shouldering the burden of a standalone restaurant—something increasingly rare in today’s dining climate.
The disappearance of spaces dedicated to vegan cuisine reflect a larger recognition from restaurants industry-wide…
Long Beach’s vegan restaurant landscape looks very different than it did just a few years ago. During the late 2010s, dedicated plant-based concepts seemingly bloomed overnight, buoyed by a city willing to embrace a broader definition of comfort food.
Since then, however, the landscape has contracted. Steamed (which was vegetarian, not vegan) became Zuzu’s Petals. Under the Sun became Sonoratown. Sugar Taco and its neighbor, The Plant Butcher, closed. V-Burger transformed into NYC Chopped Cheese. Seabirds is now Lazy Dough. Even beloved staples have had to adapt to an increasingly difficult restaurant economy: Wild Chive itself, after an initial closure announcement, bounced back as a coffee shop during the day and a brunch spot on weekends.
With that, the broader dining scene has evolved. It is now difficult to find a quality restaurant in Long Beach that doesn’t offer at least a handful of thoughtful vegan dishes. That has fundamentally changed the equation for vegan-only restaurants—especially when a group of friends, mixed with diets, choose to dine out.
Vizzi’s approach? Make it comfort food that appeals to all.
The food itself reflects a balancing act between conviction and accessibility. Rather than creating an overtly Indian menu, Akhil hired celebrated vegan chef and hospitality consultant Mark Reinfeld to help execute a vision that would feel familiar to Southern Californians while quietly introducing Indian flavors through sauces, seasonings, and chutneys.
“My prime goal was accessibility,” Akhil said. “Can we make vegan food fun? Can we make it affordable? If I was in the UK, I’d probably have a different menu. There’d definitely be curry. But here, I had to adapt to the market. Stick to menu items people already know, make them vegan, and infuse Indian spices into the sauces.”
That philosophy explains why diners find burgers, burritos, tacos and loaded fries rather than curries. The Chariot Burger layers Impossible meat beneath vegan cheese, Thousand Petals sauce, pickles, and slaw. The Infinite Burrito stuffs turmeric rice, seasoned black beans, Temple Protein, vegan cheddar and house slaw into a massive tortilla. Raja Fries arrive dusted in Mercy Seasoning, while drinks like the Amrit Mango Fresca borrow from mango lassi without dairy. Even the pricing feels intentional, with nearly every entrée landing well below what many plant-based restaurants now charge.
“I think pricing matters,” Akhil said. “A flexitarian might say, ‘I don’t want to spend $20 on a plant-based burger I might not like.’ But if it’s $12? They’ll try it. And the feedback we’ve gotten is that people don’t even realize it isn’t meat.”
Intention—not economic success—defines the vegan space that is Vizzi in Long Beach.
For Akhil, however, convincing lifelong vegans has never been the objective. The audience he hopes to reach is everyone else. Asked how a vegan-only restaurant competes in an era when nearly every quality restaurant already offers competent vegan dishes, Viz doesn’t begin with ingredients. He begins with intention.
“The other thing I want to talk about is creating a sacred space,” he said. “The music you hear isn’t just music. The words being said are those of divinity. What we believe is that as food is prepared while we’re saying the name of divinity, that energy goes into the food—and then we consume it. We complete that cycle.”
Whether diners ultimately embrace that philosophy—or simply stop by for a surprisingly satisfying vegan burger—is almost beside the point.
Vizzi arrives during a moment when Long Beach’s dedicated vegan restaurant scene is undeniably smaller than it once was. Yet perhaps that contraction has created room for something different: not another restaurant competing solely on veganism, but one asking diners to consider why they eat the way they do in the first place.
Or, as the restaurant’s mantra bluntly puts it: Eat like you give a damn.
Vizzi is located at 2650 E Broadway and is open Wednesday through Sunday from 6PM to 10PM.
