Tag:
Commentary
Culture & Commentary
Amid Trump-blamed loss of title sponsorships, Long Beach Pride 2025 features no headliners, scales down
Long Beach Pride 2025 is facing massive uphill battles with its festival, one of the longest-running Pride festivals in the nation.
Food & Drink
Sonoratown Long Beach to open late every night of the week (and why that’s important for DTLB)
Praise the Taco Gods: Sonoratown Long Beach will open seven days a week from 11AM to 10PM beginning Monday, Feb. 3.
Culture & Commentary
Dear white folk: Stop romanticizing MLK as a ‘peaceful protestor’—he was an agitator
Many of my fellow white folks have this very romanticized, outright misaligned perception of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Culture & Commentary
Food, culture, art, Long Beach: Top Longbeachize stories of 2024
2024 was a definitively wild year—and yes, that certainly includes craziness and joy here at Longbeachize.
Food & Drink
A farewell to Congregation Ale House—and a history of Long Beach’s long support of independent beer
Congregation Ale House, Downtown Long Beach's staple independent beer pourer and pub, is officially no longer.
Food & Drink
Madres Brunch Long Beach officially opens in the East Village
Madres Brunch Long Beach has officially opened. It has taken over the former LB Taco Co. space in the East Village, which closed earlier this year.
Culture & Commentary
The $100 bagel and $85 calzone: Redefining (and questioning) luxury food in Long Beach
Yes, in Long Beach in 2024, there exists a $100 bagel at Olive & Rose and a calzone at Marlena costing you $85.
Food & Drink
Long Beach’s Heritage holds onto its Michelin star for the second year in a row
Long Beach's Heritage restaurant—ran and operated by Chef Philip and his sister Lauren Pretty—has held onto its Michelin star for the second year in a row after first scoring it last year.
Culture & Commentary
GUEST COLUMN: When the walls (almost) came tumbling down in Long Beach
Julia Huang reflects on the recent challenges and surprises encountered to organize Long Beach’s ninth annual urban art festival, Long Beach Walls.
Culture & Commentary
Well-read: The Long Beach bookstore renaissance happening on 4th Street
The Long Beach bookstore is having an outright renaissance along the Retro Row stretch of 4th Street. And it's thanks to the love of the tangible slowly returning as people steer more healthily away from screens and towards the things of this earth. Especially the printed page.
Culture & Commentary
Long Beach LGBTQ district takes step forward toward fruition—and why that matters
Initially presented as an idea two years ago, the creation of a formally sanctioned Long Beach LGBTQ district along the Broadway Corridor has taken a major step forward, with councilmembers unanimously approving a strategic plan that will guide the City and planners on how to make the district a tangible, explorable space.
Culture & Commentary
Long Beach Last Call draws thousands across 10-day celebration of bar culture
Thousands of revelers—be they dancers or drinkers, in the industry or seeking to support it—came out in love for Long Beach Last Call: 15 events across 10 days of celebration in the name of our bar culture and the people behind one of our strongest social and economic drivers.
Culture & Commentary
Maritime Bicycle Courier—Long Beach’s sole bike deliverer—quietly and permanently shutters business
Long Beach has officially lost one of its most unique (and green) businesses: Maritime Bicycle Courier, the nearly decade-long delivery service that used bicyclists, has permanently shut down.
Culture & Commentary
Long Beach restaurants for sale: Seabirds, Little Coyote, Saltwater Deck, Steady Brewing, more looking for new owners
2023—despite the amount of great Long Beach restaurants, both new and old, releasing great dishes and the coming of nearly 25 new spaces this year—was a year of immense struggles and it is means that multiple Long Beach restaurants for sale will and are popping up. They already include some of the city's biggest food names, including Seabirds Kitchen, Little Coyote, Saltwater Deck, and more.
Culture & Commentary
A holiday ode to the queer bars of Long Beach’s Gayborhood—and every queer bar in the world
The holidays can be a convoluted emotional bag for those within the queer community—and this is a dedication and reminder that whether surrounded by love or still searching to find some form of it, our bars are more than just bars: They're our churches.
Culture & Commentary
Long Beach needs its visitors bureau—so what is, if any, the controversy surrounding the Long Beach Convention Center?
The CVB—what is the Long Beach Convention Center and its Visitors Bureau—is separating into two different entities. That is not controversial but a good thing no matter which angle is examined.
Culture & Commentary
Long Beach’s inaugural Sake Day proved itself to be the most underrated drink event in the city
Long Beach's inaugural Sake Day event was nothing short of stellar, helping SoCal move beyond the sake bomb and into the art behind quality sake.
Culture & Commentary
Long Beach Bartenders Guild closes a gap in the local hospitality industry that’s existed for too long
Yes, amid the tables lined with pours of various tequilas and mezcals from Nosotros—a tequileria and mezcaleria that has bases in both Jalisco and...
Culture & Commentary
Long Beach has scored its first Michelin star—but the Guide’s importance in SoCal (and the world) needs to be dismissed in the modern world
There is no question this is an accolade—but therein lies another question: Should this accolade mean something for an organization that dismissed our entire region?
Culture & Commentary
The appearance of Long Beach butch queer Angie Evans on RuPaul’s Drag Race is much more important than it seems
Queer unity can often be filtered through a rose-tinted lens—but for a show as campy as RuPaul's Drag Race can be, this particular episode featuring a Long Beach business owner seizing her vulnerability opens the door for many future, rich conversations for queers.
Culture & Commentary
Our city deserves a designated Long Beach LGBTQ district—and it’s more than just the naming of it
The city's proposed LGBTQ+ district is not only a long time in the making from a political perspective, but one in which queer history is intimately attached to a public project like never before in Long Beach.
Culture & Commentary
Snoop Dogg, Tupac producer Battlecat played for Altruism music series in DTLB—and why that is important for Long Beach
SoCal hip hop legend DJ Battlecat played to a packed, sold-out show at the Edison in DTLB as part of the Altruism music series, which is an important cog in shifting Long Beach's music into the future.
Culture & Commentary
Jordanian and Long Beach love: Ammatolí’s dinner with Chef Ali Ghzawi reflects the beauty of our city’s best restaurant
There is much to be said about the stellar collaboration dinner between Ammatolí's Chef Dima Habibeh and Alee's Chef Ali Ghzawi—but the most powerful part was its unabashed display of Jordanian love.
Culture & Commentary
Why the most recent Beach Streets was easily Long Beach’s best (and why our streets are more than things for cars)
This year's Beach Streets event was genuinely its best yet: Fully activated hubs, a genuinely communal feel that superseded formally sanctioned happenings, and a continual presence of walkers, bicyclists, strollers, skaters...
Culture & Commentary
Steve Dolinsky, Chicago’s ‘Food Guy,’ took a tour of Long Beach’s restaurant scene—and why that matters
A 13-time James Beard award winner, one of the pioneers of local videographic food storytelling, and an overall great human, Steve Dolinsky decided to take a tour through Long Beach's food scene—guided by yours truly and James Tir.
Culture & Commentary
Long Beach Lost: The cringey and strange tale of how Lucille’s Smokehouse created a fictitious Black woman for their brand
In a move that echoes the controversy surrounding Quaker Oats's creation of Aunt Jemima, Lucille's proudly admitted to creating Lucille Buchanan, a fictitious Black woman from South Carolina which inspired their barbecue. Come the BLM protests of 2020, the restaurant removed the entire story without a word.
Culture & Commentary
Cali Chilli continues to shine a light on Indian cuisine with Michelin-recognized Chef Manjunath Mural’s private dinner
Cali Chilli continues represent an idea of Indian food that really doesn't exist in much of the region, a space where traditional and innovation mix—and the prix fixe dinner of Chef Mural, visiting from Singapore, exemplifies that.
Culture & Commentary
Why one of Long Beach’s most important foci should be limiting speeds on our most dangerous roads
In this guest commentary piece, Long Beach Transit Boardmember Michael Clemson breaks down how speed is one of our city's most dangerous characteristics.
Culture & Commentary
The Afro-Latino roots of L.A. is a history we should all know in light of racist comments from Latino leaders
Perturbing conversations between four Latino political leaders of Los Angeles—unveiling vile, racist comments that targets Black and Indigenous populations—are but a reminder that L.A.'s history has deep roots with Afro-Latinos.
Culture & Commentary
An ode to the queer bars of Long Beach’s Gayborhood—and every queer bar in the world
The holidays can be a convoluted emotional bag for those within the queer community—and this is a dedication and reminder that whether surrounded by love or still searching to find some form of it, our bars are more than just bars: They're our churches.
Culture & Commentary
Three Long Beach restaurants recognized by Michelin but does the guide matter in L.A.?
Heritage, The Attic, and HiroNori have both been noted in the new guide that recently returned to California—not formally awarded any stars—but should the L.A. region really care?
Culture & Commentary
Stop calling your food ‘Nashville hot’ when it’s not—because there’s history there
The first time I ever had Kim Prince’s Nashville hot chicken—she’s the niece of André Prince Jeffries, the matriarch behind Nashville’s iconic, James Beard...
Culture & Commentary
What Removing a Freeway in West Long Beach Could Look Like—And Why It Must Happen
I’ve been talking a lot about park equity and the importance of safe, greener spaces lately, especially when it comes to West and North Long Beach, a conversation that hasn’t been led or driven by me but largely about the community.
Culture & Commentary
710 Project Releases REIR; Proposal Creates Further Ped/Bike Danger for West & North Long Beach
I love West and North Long Beach. For me, they are the forgotten neighborhoods, places that easily fall into the fray of pollution, inequity,...
