Mangiafolie, the vegan space dedicated to Southern Italian cuisine and pastries, is soft opening Jan. 22 at 8AM. After announcing his re-branding of the popular and respected Long Beach Vegan Pizza popup as he scored the former Scholb space at the southeast corner of 4th Street and Junipero Avenue, owner Paul Reese is “full of gratitude and humility. I’ve kept this project somewhat close to the chest because of endless bureaucracy and nagging uncertainty.”
What to expect at Mangiafolie’s soft opening? Pastries and coffee—the main courses will rolled out later.
“We’re going to introduce pastries next week,” Paul said. “Still hunkering down the final menu with our pastry staff at the moment—but it will be ready come next week. After that, we can roll onto entrées.”
So what, without the pizza and pasta, shall we expect? The pastries on top of a full coffee menu: drip. Espresso. Americanos and macchiatos. Cappuccinos and cortados. Lattes and mochas. Along with some signatures stuff, including a black truffle cappuccino and lemon cream latte.
The story behind Mangiafolie starts with a pepperoni pizza.
When Long Beach Vegan Pizza wasn’t known as Mangiafolie, the popup impressed vegans across the region. And its humble owner Paul has always said one thing: It all began with a desire for a pepperoni pizza. A vegan one, of course.
“The whole journey of Long Beach Vegan Pizza started based off of pepperoni,” he said. “My wife and I really wanted a good vegan pepperoni pizza and there was nothing around. We saw the opportunity and we said, ‘Okay, cool, we need to make an amazing pepperoni pizza.'”
By October of 2020, after multiple pepperonis, multiple doughs, multiple cheeses, they felt they had something worth selling and began selling online. Soon, with steady popups at spaces like Hi-Lo Liquor in DTLB, the brand began to grow and became not only a growing part of L.A.’s regional Black- and POC-owned vegan spaces scene but owned Long Beach as the premiere vegan pizza spot.
And now, Paul is ready to expand into their first brick-and-mortar.
It is a welcomed addition to a dwindling vegan scene.
To say that Mangiafolie will be welcomed by Long Beach’s vegan community is an understatement.
V-Burger, the 4th Street staple, closed in March of 2024. Then Morning Nights—the vastly underrated vegan Asian-fusion joint inside The Hangar at the Long Beach Exchange complex—had its last day of food service in August of last year. It joined Seabirds, which saw its last of service on Sept. 8 of 2024, leaving 4th Street—after V-Burger—vegan-less in terms of spaces dedicated solely to vegan food. Then The Wild Chive faced an uphill battle while Sugar Taco closed both its Downtown Long Beach and flagship Melrose location.
Mangiafoglie will soft open on Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 8AM and is located at 2306 E. 4th St.
