As we continue celebrating Long Beach Food Scene: Last Call—a 10-day, multi-event celebration of our city’s rich bar culture and the people who make it happen—we will offer a series of features that highlight everything from our most stellar cocktail programs at restaurants to to the very events occurring (like this feature on our DTLB bar crawl)… All in order to lift a glass to a social and economic driver that rarely receives the love its deserves: our bar industry. For more information on Long Beach Last Call, tap here.
There are two things very near and dear to me: DTLB and my food group, the Long Beach Food Scene. Last year, for the first time, I hosted a meet-up for its then 60,000—and now with nearly 80,000 members, I am hoping we can showcase the same success as last year, as hundreds of folks came out to support DTLB businesses across a multi-hour spread of drinking, walking, dancing, and joy.
So yes, of course the DTLB bar crawl returns thanks to support from the Downtown Long Beach Alliance. And it does so on Friday, Mar. 7 beginning at 6PM at Altar Society.
So what is this Downtown Long Beach bar crawl all about?
The event is entirely free while also giving patrons the chance to support small businesses, including highlighting two of DTLB’s newest businesses, Broken Spirits Distillery and Midnight Oil.
We start at Altar Brewing at 6PM on Friday, Mar. 7. Come 7PM, we keep it light with the beer by visiting ISM Brewing. At 8PM, we’ll head over to The Odinarie. Around 9PM, we’ll be at The Stave. Come 10PM, we’ll hit up Broken Spirits.
And at 11PM, we’ll finish the night off at Long Beach’s newest food and drink space, the dim sum-centric Midnight Oil.
Why it is important to lift DTLB up.
There is no question that the Downtown very much has its issues. (To such an extent I even hosted a private meet-up between DTLB business owners, the mayor, and the chief of police a few months back to figure out how to address those very issues.) Break-ins. A barrage of mentally unwell folks without homes or safe spaces. A seemingly heavily decreased amount of foot traffic since the office buildings have been left nearly depleted since the pandemic. All issues that have plagued every downtown in the nation. All issues resulting in a 8% decrease in city-center populations across our country’s largest metros.
But the extent to which the Downtown is vilified—particularly by media outlets and social media users who spend more time behind screens than actually visiting businesses and walking the streets—is unjustified. And I am not saying “unjustified” as to whether or not their observations lack truth or not. Rather, it widely dismisses the daily work put in by small business owners, local organizations, patrons, and residents who slowly but surely shifting the neighborhood toward the better.
Small businesses in Downtown are leading the charge in a shift toward the better—and we’re choosing to highlight some of those businesses with this crawl.
The ultimate thing being ignored—and it is something I will flesh out in a much larger piece—are the DTLB businesses that are truly keeping it all together. And this all comes in layers. There is the choice by Promenade business owners to stay open seven days a week, even as many are seeing numbers in the red as they hope those will disappear. There’s local firm Studio One Eleven leading the charge to create a Design District in DTLB, activating empty spaces and harnessing the creative pool that Downtown holds. Then there’s the array of small businesses hosting the Downtown Art Walk, bringing out people at night. And there are other outside-Long Beach business owners like Leonard Chan trying to alter existing spaces and staying open late with food like The Ordinary already does. Or coffee shops like Recreational experimenting with wine and beer and expanded hours. And spaces like Sonoratown deciding to stay open late…
And Sonoratown? They have, somewhat magically, brought in a lunch crowd that only Ammatolí had succeeded in grasping on the regular. It has brought with it a renewed sense of what foot traffic can and should be in the Downtown. And with late-night hours, that will only benefit the entire neighborhood, especially The Promenade.
Wait–you mention Long Beach Last Call 2025. What is it?
Long Beach Food Scene: Last Call—or Long Beach Last Call 2025 if you wanna keep it simple—returns 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 and unlimited tastings events to cocktail contests and proper Irish coffee lessons, Long Beach Last Call will continue to be the premiere event celebrating Long Beach’s bar and cocktail culture.
After the success of my restaurant in 2023, 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 last year, 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. And thousands of people proudly showed up. With the alcohol industry going through a roller-coaster of layoffs and rearrangements—from brands leaving distribution companies to brand representation shrinking nationwide—now is the time more than ever to support these incredible people.
