Live music, a beer garden, food truck vendors and more filled LBCC’s Pacific Coast Campus on Saturday, March 3 at the inaugural Food-a-Looza event.
Dan O’Brien, a managing partner at Long Beach Living, explained that their involvement with LBCC started with the Tamale Festival hosted at PCC in Dec. 2022.
Tamale Festival’s success, which outgrew the space it was initially held at, called for a new space for this event. It also sparked the idea to host similar events at the Pacific Coast Campus.
This was done with the explicit approval of LBCC superintendent president Mike Munoz, as the suggestion to have a food fest happened during a separate conversation between him and O’Brien.
“The overall goal for establishing the food festival was to bring in and protect small businesses in the Long Beach area,” O’Brien said.
Roxanne Gonzalez, a Pacific Coast Swap Meet organizer and coordinator, spoke of her love for the greater Long Beach area and her desire to create spaces for independent vendors in Long Beach to flourish. Her husband and oldest daughter are also involved in running the event.
“After COVID, lots of people lost their businesses, and we wanted to create a place where they can come and have an audience here in Long Beach since it didn’t exist before.”, said Gonzalez.
This goal seems to be echoed by LBCC’s board of trustees president Vivian Malauulu, who worked with the Gonzalez Family to bring about the Pacific Coast Swap meet in Oct. of 2022.
Like with many industries within the last few years, pop-up vendors had taken a hit over the COVID-19 pandemic, as many spaces used to host them were closed.
The organizers behind Sataurdays Swap Meet hope to continue the event on an, at least, a monthly basis.
Skyler Woods, a patron, and self-proclaimed swap meet regular, happily gave his first impression of LB Living’s inaugural Food-a-Looza as he stood in line at Mapachito’s, a cafe and bakery food truck.
“I’m excited to see this event come back soon and get better,” said Woods.