Long Beach Construction (Planned, Proposed, & Current)

[LAMetroGuy]

I am surprised at how fast projects are getting underway here in downtown LB!

[Easy]

2005 could be a huge year for downtown LB. So far the demand for quality housing has exceeded the supply. With all of the new projects it will be very interesting to see if that continues. I'd bet that it will. The more people that move downtown the more attractive it becomes. The more attractive it becomes the more people move there.

[LAMetroGuy]

This upcoming weekend (here in Long Beach California) the new ferris wheel is opening up at the Pike.

Other notable ferris wheels in LA and Orange County:

Disney's California Adventure: 160 Feet

Santa Monica Peer: 130 Feet

Irvine Spectrum: 108 Feet

and now...

Long Beach Pike = 90 Feet

[LAmetroman]

Originally Posted by LAMetroGuy

Disney's California Adventure: 160 Feet

Santa Monica Peer: 130 Feet

Irvine Spectrum: 108 Feet

and now...

Long Beach Pike = 90 Feet

I wish Long Beach had gone for a larger ferris wheel that could have become a signature attraction for visiting tourists. Considering its advantage with coastal views, Catalina Island, and adjoinng skyling, it is weird to think of the Irvine Spectrum having a taller attraction.

[LAMetroGuy]

There is a 7-Eleven going in place of the old Leader Drugs at Pine and Broadway.

According to what I've read, the city has hopes that the 7-Eleven can serve the dual purpose of catering to a growing downtown residential population and sporting a look appropriate with the vision for Pine.

The 7-Eleven, which is being called an "urban walk-up store,' is one of a handful in the 5,800- unit chain. The store will have a modern look, and serve low-carbohydrate, Atkins-type foods as well as sushi, and signature Big Gulps, too.

The chain has gone through several designs with the city to ensure it's got the right look.

I took some pictures as I drove by (they are kinda blury)... what do you think?

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Just curious since i dont live down there nor been to LB in a long time, is there plenty of residential in that area? it seems to me that there is plenty of potential for a thriving pedestrial oriented downtown city. Also, to answer your question, it does look more urban than other 7-11's and it fits the neighborhod.

[LAMetroGuy]

Yes, there are a lot of development projects going on... just look at the first page and it shows most of the projects currently in the pipeline. Most of these projects are residential. Also, there is an abundant amount of existing residential throughout downtown... mostly to already completed condos, apartment, and loft conversion projects.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

^ thanks. i gotta make my way down there and check out all the development. i enjoy your pictures by the way, you portray LB in a good way.

[LAMetroGuy]

yeah, you should check it out! There is a lot to do out there and lots of restuaruants.

As a matter of fact, Chili’s Restaurant is Opening soon! Its set to open on March 3, 2005 At 30 Shoreline Drive West (Located at the Pike at Rainbow Harbor).

Also, Cafe Sevilla is opening in May. It is a Spanish restaurant and serves tapas and sangria! It is located in the heart of Pine Ave. (near the 7-Eleven)

[Easy]

My initial impression is that it's too good of a location in the heart of Pine Ave. to waste on a 7-Eleven, but I'm withholding judgement until it opens. I've driven/walked by it a few times and so far I haven't seen anything to change my mind. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

[LAMetroGuy]

[LAMetroGuy]

DLBA study shows growth from 66% to 71% in 2 years.

By Don Jergler
Staff writer

LONG BEACH — More people are making more pleasure trips to downtown, according to a poll conducted for the Downtown Long Beach Associates.
A random telephone poll to 300 people was commissioned by the DLBA to assess the advertising reach of its "A Place to Be. And Be Yourself' campaign. The poll was conducted in Long Beach by H. Blount Hunter Retail & Real Estate Research Co. Visitation by adults rose from 66 percent in 2002 to 71 percent in 2004, according to the poll, which credits the increase to downtown revitalization.

"There's a higher awareness of downtown than there was two years ago," said Kraig Kojian, the DLBA's president and CEO.

Darcy Driscoll, who heads marketing for DLBA, chalked up the increased visitation to the opening of the Pike at Rainbow Harbor and the new residents moving in.

Up to 4,000 residential units have been added or are being added to the downtown area, which is undergoing a $1 billion revitalization that includes the addition of 1 million square feet of retail space.

The poll also shows a shift toward visits by an older group of people. The highest number of visits came from those in the 45-to 64-year-old age bracket in 2004. That's a swing from 2002, when 18-to 34-year-olds were the area's biggest patrons.

The poll shows that households with incomes over $75,000 tend to be the primary visitors downtown, and that the greatest beneficiary of increased downtown use is Pine Avenue.

However, few poll respondents said they recognized the DLBA's print advertisements. Roughly 3 percent of adults in the survey recalled seeing any print advertising with the slogan "The Place to Be. And Be Yourself," the poll shows.

That has prompted DLBA officials to rethink their ad campaign. Driscoll said they will consider taking out larger ads to run more frequently in fewer publications, and placing more emphasis on other media, like cable and Internet advertising.

She said having only $34,000 to spend on the campaign also may have dampened results. This year, the DLBA has committed $62,000 in its budget for the print campaign.

[LAMetroGuy]

Has anyone been to downtown LB recently?

[glidescube]

I was there about 2 weeks ago. I live in Belmont Shore which puts me less than 2.5 miles away. My dad almot bought me a condo in that one curvy postmodern looking building that stands in front of the asphalt area. He owned a condo there on the 12th floor and was going to give it to me but eventually sold it and bought me one in Belmont instead. But I can't complain; how often do you get a free home?

DTLB is looking better every year but they have to get away forma ll this talk of affordable housing. Affordable housing is a pretty world for ghetto and noone with proper means wishes to live in an area with a title like that.

I would be nice if the city could immenint domain the bad areas fix them up real nice and sell the houses for a nice profit. I would be agains razing anything there becasue the place has such a historc feel but there is no reason why it should look so ratty.

After they are all done the can call it the tribecca of the west~

[Easy]

I've been to downtown Long Beach several times over the last few months. Pine Avenue and the restaurants past the Pike seemed to be doing well on the weekends I went, but some weekends were better than others. Probably had something to do with convention/cruise traffic patterns. The Pike itself seemed to be a teen hangout. Looked like they're having trouble filling up the stores. More people living downtown will definitely make the area more attractive to national retail/restaurant chains. It's definitely an area on the rise.

[LAMetroGuy]

Plans to build homes, retail downtown get moving again.

By Don Jergler
Staff writer



LONG BEACH — One of the major components of downtown revitalization is finally taking shape.
Progress is being made at The Promenade, a pedestrian street bordered by First and Third streets, with alleys connecting it to Pine Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard.

It's a portion of downtown frequented by the homeless that serves as a reminder of what happened when the U.S. Navy pulled out of Long Beach in the early 1990s, leaving a hole in the economy.

Many businesses and residential buildings on The Promenade have since vacated. Aside from the Blue Cafe, the only signs of commercial life materialize at the Farmers Market on Fridays. That was moved to nearby CityPlace late last year to make way for development, but vendors selling hot food and crafts still use the Promenade area.

Now, the first signs that revitalization is about to touch the Promenade are rearing up. A residential/retail project is nearing completion, the first of three large developments on The Promenade is set to break ground in April, and two of the projects off the street are expected to win approval in March.

Work has begun on the Insurance Exchange Building project at 201 E. Broadway, with a sale of the last half of 12 units scheduled for March 21.

Developers of what has long been considered an eyesore said this week that they have signed an independent developer to build a conjoined ground-floor Cajun restaurant, Qunitens, and basement club, The Cellar.

"Our building was probably the most dilapidated building in the area," said Dan Peterson of Loft Developments Inc. in Gardena.

Thanks to development, half the units were reserved in October, with prices ranging from the high $500,000s to the mid-$700,000s for 1,450-square-foot New York-style lofts.

The 1925 building, which originally featured the Middough Men's Store, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. Designed by Harvey Lockridge, the architect on several downtown Long Beach buildings, it cost more than $165,000 to build at the time.

Construction is set to begin in April on The Olson Co.'s two-building project at The Promenade and Broadway. The project has 18 unit plans that range from an 832-square-foot one-bedroom to a 2,441-square-foot loft.

There will be 97 residential units. Some lofts have space for residents who wish to operate street-level retail, and 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space for lease.

Unit prices should range from the mid-$300,000s to the $600,000s, said Ben Besley, director of development for The Olson Co., a Seal Beach developer.

"We consider Long Beach to be one of the best new housing communities in the Southern California area, and we believe this site is possibly the best site in Long Beach," Besley said.


Parking problems?
With completion expected in the first quarter of 2007, the project will include a two-level subterranean garage with 75 to 80 public parking spaces.
That's a contentious issue for some downtown business.

"I think we're going to go through two years of hell on Pine Avenue," said John Morris, owner of Smooth's Sports Grille, which has customers parking in The Promenade area due to the lack of parking on Pine.

Morris, a vocal City Hall critic, has argued that the city is breaking its promise to maintain public parking on The Promenade. He has estimated the area is being shorted 20 parking spaces because of The Olson project alone.

Already in operation, downtown projects The Pike at Rainbow Harbor and CityPlace combine for roughly 1 million square feet of dining, retail and entertainment space.

However, the projects have so far failed to draw a large number of retailers and have been labeled uninviting and hard to access by some designers and architects.

The Pike sits on the south side of a hill, separated from Pine Avenue and CityPlace by Ocean Boulevard, and CityPlace has come under attack by designers for its look.

But The Promenade projects underwent an extensive design review process from the newly created Redevelopment Agency Design Review Committee, and were scrutinized by the Long Beach Design Forum, a group of area architects who meet regularly to discuss downtown projects.

"That has helped the process," said Jonathan Glasgow of Belmont Shore architecture firm Interstices, a member of the forum and designer of both the Kress and Walker Building projects on Pine Avenue. "There's definitely a drastic improvement over the architecture of, say, CityPlace."

Glasgow likes the look of the The Promenade projects because of complementary elements, such as landscape, design and lighting.

"This creates a linkage between the north end of Promenade and CityPlace and the whole Promenade district and Pine Avenue," he said.

Lyon Realty Advisers Inc.'s three-structure project at Third Street and The Promenade is scheduled for civic approval in March. Yearlong construction is expected to begin by summer's end.

Developers say they expect to start leasing the 104 loft-style apartments in summer 2006. Units range from 724 to 1,255 square feet. Rents have not been set.

The project includes 12,000 feet of retail space — for one to three tenants — and a 390-stall parking garage.

"We're trying to incorporate the loft-style building into the exterior facade of the project," said Eric Donnelly, Lyon's vice president of construction.

Construction on Lennar Homes of California's project at Broadway and First is set to begin in November. Developers say they anticipate design approval by March.

"We're looking at between a 16- and 18-month build time," said Donna Kelly of Lennar.

The Promenade Condominiums will feature 62 town homes ranging in size from 717 to 2,169 square feet and flats in a new 5-story building, plus 5,100 square feet of ground floor retail space.

Prices have yet to be set for units in the contemporary architecture project, which includes 146 spaces of street-level and subterranean parking.


The hotel question
When? That's a question developers of the D'Orsay Embassy Suites are often asked.
The much talked-about hotel project promised to bring an 11-story executive-suite hotel plus retail space to The Promenade. Three fewer stories and several redesigns later, developers are taking what they hope will be the final plans for the hotel to the Redevelopment Board Agency meeting today.

The project was first proposed in 1998, but financial difficulties and design issues have sidetracked its approval.

Hotel developer D'Orsay International Partners persuaded Beverly Hills-based Hilton to plant an Embassy Suites banner on the project.

That was more than two years ago.

Now that development manager Hotel Financial Strategies has scaled down the project to lower costs to bring it in line with a typical Embassy Suites look, things are looking up, said Steve Gold of Hotel Financial.

The original architects drew up an "irregular infrastructure," which confused potential contractors and resulted in higher bids than estimates called for, Gold said.

"It blew up the project, basically," Gold said. "The cost of building that hotel got way out of kilter."

Bids rose to more than $8 million over initial projections, putting project costs near $50 million, Gold said.

A new architect redesigned a shorter project with fewer rooms, reducing costs by more than $7 million, Gold said.

The result calls for a grand lobby with 30-foot ceilings and larger suites in an 8-story, 210-room hotel with 6,000 square feet of ballroom and meeting spaces, a large restaurant, a health center and 3,500 square feet of retail.

From the time the RDA gives the nod to the D'Orsay Embassy Suites, it will take about six months to break ground and another 14 months to complete, Gold said.


The look of it
The final piece to The Promenade is being assembled this week when a group of stakeholders meets to discuss visual elements, such as landscape architecture, benches, walkways, signage and lighting to connect the projects, said Jae Von Klug, the city's downtown redevelopment project officer.
While The Promenade is the last of downtown's open spaces for development, Von Klug said the city regularly gets inquiries from developers looking to reshape existing downtown structures, particularly in the East Village Arts District.

"Right now, it appears that we're a hot market," Von Klug said. "We are getting a lot of people coming through asking for assembling and tearing down blocks from Cedar to Alamitos and from Ocean all the way up to Eighth Street.

"I think we will see a lot more changes in our landscape."

[LAMetroGuy]

Originally Posted by LAMetroGuy

yeah, you should check it out! There is a lot to do out there and lots of restuaruants.

As a matter of fact, Chili?s Restaurant is Opening soon! Its set to open on March 3, 2005 At 30 Shoreline Drive West (Located at the Pike at Rainbow Harbor).

Also, Cafe Sevilla is opening in May. It is a Spanish restaurant and serves tapas and sangria! It is located in the heart of Pine Ave. (near the 7-Eleven)

The Chili's restaurant has already opened! Right next to this restaurant, DDR has announced that they will be building a "Boston’s the Gourmet Pizza" restaurant (first one in California). Boston's the Gourmet Pizza is a full-service, pizza themed, casual dining restaurant and sports bar, offering pizza, pastas and a wide variety of other dishes, such as appetizers, sandwiches, ribs and salads.

Also, above the V20 night club (next to the upcoming Mai Tai Bar) they are opening up a "Crazy Horse Restaurant & Nighclub". The only other Crazy Horse is located in the Irvine Spectrum.

Looks like space is filling up at the PIKE.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Daily Grill in downtown Long Beach is good, and different
Making the straightforward food can get complicated.

By Al Rudis
Restaurant Editor


Thursday, March 10, 2005 - Why would anyone pay $14.50 for chicken pot pie at the Daily Grill, when you can get a good one at Marie Callender's Grill for almost $4 less?

It's because the pie at the Daily Grill in downtown Long Beach is also good — and different.

"Bob said when we first started, "Chicken pot pie is a tradition, John, you've got to come up with a chicken pot pie," said John Sola, vice president and executive chef of the chain.

Bob is Bob Spivak, who founded the Grill in Beverly Hills and then the Daily Grill chain, and the time is the early 1980s.

''I used to make this dish at the Chronicle (in Pasadena), Crepe Veronique, for my Sunday brunches, with a bechamel sauce and chicken and grapes. So I took my crepe Veronique recipe and added mushrooms to it. And what really makes our chicken pot pie different from every other chicken pot pie is that we just use the dark meat, the thigh meat. It gives it the moisture.

"Every morning, we get our thigh meat, steam it, then let it cool down and dice it in one- to two-inch chunks. Then in a large pot we'll start off with butter and saute our onions and carrots, then add in the mushrooms. Then a minute later, we'll add our cooked chicken thigh meat and mix it up.

"Then we make a bechamel sauce from milk with onions, bay leaf and liquid chicken base reduced into a paste. We bring it to a boil and add roux, a flour and butter mixture. My roux uses very little flour, so you don't get any flour flavor. You strain this into the carrots, onions, mushrooms and chicken. Then we mix that up and add the peas and season with a little lemon juice and hot sauce.

"You keep it hot on the cook line. When an order comes in, you scoop it into a soup bowl, cover it with puff pastry, egg wash it and bake it in the oven about nine or 10 minutes."

The filling of the pie is delicious, but the first thing you notice is that puff pastry, which is made daily from butter, flour and eggs. It's not the usual flaky pot pie crust (which I like). It's more chewy, and it makes the dish closer to chicken and biscuits than the usual pot pie.

The whole pot pie process illustrates the Daily Grill approach to food, which seems to be, "Take an ordinary, familiar all-American dish and go as far as you can to transform it into a gourmet-class entree — and then go a little farther."

That's why much of the menu may remind you of a diner — except for the prices. Entrees are $14 to $26, and that's a la carte. If you want a small bowl of soup, you pay $3.50 more, and a salad costs $5 more. At least the portions aren't skimpy.

From the chunk of complimentary sourdough bread that comes to the table shortly after you're seated to the luscious desserts, everything I tried at the Daily Grill was delicious. Here are some highlights:

Potatoes and onions. This appetizer is thinly sliced Kennebec potatoes and thinly sliced sweet yellow onions dusted with flour. Both are deep fried.

Mixed green salad. Iceberg lettuce, frisee, romaine, julienne carrots, sliced mushrooms, tomato wedges and sliced radishes are served with either homemade dressings such as Thousand Island (a delicious blend of mayonnaise, ketchup, pickle relish, celery, whole egg, salt and pepper), creamy Italian or Caesar or proprietary dresssings made by Conway Dressings from Daily Grill recipes: vinaigrette, bleu cheese vinaigrette, balsamic, Asian, no-oil herb, ranch and creamy bleu cheese.

Caesar salad. The hearts of romaine come from Boggiattio Farms in Salinas. ''We take our leftover sourdough bread and cut it into croutons and bake them in the oven," said Sola. "Then we toss them in a butter and garlic seasoning." The dressing is made of mayonnaise, egg, olive oil, anchovies, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce instead of pepper, garlic and lemon juice, all blended together. And there is imported Parmesan cheese in there, too.

Spicy pecan, Gorgonzola and endive salad. "It's one-third romaine, one-third radicchio and one-third endive," Sola said. The dressing is walnut-infused olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. "We take our pecans and boil them in a water and sugar mixture, then strain them and drop them into some hot oil to crisp them up for about two minutes and just let them dry until they get hard and candyish. We put a little bit of pepper and cayenne into the sugar and and water mixture to give it a spicy kick. And then we have the crumbled bleu cheese."

Chopped beef steak and onions. This is Certified Genuine Angus from the chuck, aged 28 to 35 days, 81 to 19 percent beef to fat, brought in from a packer in the Midwest. "We put it on the charbroiler," said Sola. "We season all our steaks with Santa Maria seasoning, a blent of granulated garlic, black pepper and kosher salt. The onions are sliced and sauteed with just a little oil until they get color and then are put over the steak."

Apple relish. It's on the plate with the chopped beef and potatoes, but it's not mentioned on that part of the menu. This was another request from the founder, who wanted a relish to serve with chicken and ground beef. "I had this thing that I used to make, an apple chutney for my cold beef Wellington," said Sola, "and I kind of tinkered with it a little bit. It's basically apples, onions, brown sugar, honey, garlic and some mustard seed. We just cook it all down and I add a little bit of chili sauce and a little soy sauce at the end."

Duchess potatoes. The potatoes are boiled and drained, then whipped with half and half, sweet butter, salt and white pepper. "In the true Duchess potatoes, we would put nutmeg in them," said Sola, ''but here we don't." Then they are put into a pastry bag, and when an order for the chopped steak comes in, they are piped onto the cast iron plate and put under a salamander broiler to bake until the edges are golden brown.

Provencale tomato. This also comes with the chopped steak, along with the Duchess potatoes and apple relish. A mixture of panko Japanese breadcrumbs, garlic, salt, butter and Regginitio cheese, a Parmesan that actually comes from Argentina and whose strong flavor makes the tomato taste special.

Penne pesto with chicken. This isn't very traditional American (neither was the tomato). "You always have to see what's going on out there and kind of stay on top of changing things but still try to keep your course," is how Sola explains it. He says the penne pesto is a hot dish all over the country, because "people look at it as healthy. It's just herbs and olive oil, two healthy things."

Fresh basil is cooked down and mixed with Parmesan cheese and pine nuts. That's sauteed with olive oil and garlic and then blended and tossed with the pasta and cream to smooth it out — three parts pesto mix to one part cream. The chicken breast is seasoned with Santa Maria seasoning, grilled and julienned.

Cedar plank salmon. All the seafood at the Daily Grill is seasoned with white pepper and kosher salt. The salmon is makred on the broiler, then placed on a cedar plank skin side down and lightly brushed with a citrus barbecue sauce made for the chain by Claude Koeberle's Creative Culinary Concepts in Irvine. Koeberle, who worked with Wolfgang Puck, is a consultant for Sola.

''When I'm looking for certain flavors, I go see him, and I say, here's what I'm looking for." Koeberle creates samples, and Sola picks the sauce that works best with his dish. "And he'll put it together and ship it out to all my restaurants." The citrus barbecue sauce is made from a reduction of tomatoes, pineapple, orange, garlic and liquid smoke.

The salmon is baked in the oven, then brushed with more of the sauce and put under the cheese melter to give it crispness. It's served with a little beurre blanc (butter and wine) sauce on the bottom.

Chicken marsala. The chicken breast is pounded down, seasoned with salt, dusted with flour and cooked quickly on the flat grill. The sauce is made from butter, shallots, sweet marsala wine, roasted garlic, a veal demiglaze sauce from Koeberle and sliced mushrooms. Koeberle cooks the veal bones for three days, said Sola. ''He'll take that and actually pulverize the bones and freeze dry them into powder form. Add it to water and you've got your veal stock." The chicken is taken from the grill to the saute pan and quickly coated, then put on the plate, with the sauce poured over it."

Grilled herb chicken breasts. Four breasts are marinated for 24 hours in a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary, basil, tarragon, thyme, garlic, shallots, salt and pepper. Then they are put on the charbroiler, marked and put into the oven for three or four minutes "because you don't want to dry them out cooking on the charbroiler." The garnish is mushrooms, onions and strips of zucchini seasoned with the steak seasoning and grilled.

Spinach mashed potaotes. Fresh spinach is steamed for 20 seconds and mixed into the same potatoes used for the Duchess potatoes. This is such a simple idea, but it works.

Creamed spinach. Frozen chopped spinach is thawed and squeezed until dry, then sauteed with butter, garlic, shallots, cream and a little nutmeg, plus a touch of lemon juice and hot sauce. "I use a Louisiana hot sauce, not Tabasco," said Sola. "It doesn't have an aftertaste."

Fruit cobbler of the day. Right now it's probably berry cobbler. Fresh blueberries, blackberries and strawberries are mixed with brown sugar and cinnamon. Applesauce that's been thickened with cornstarch is added, and the mixture is put into a baking dish and covered with streusel made from brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, butter and a touch of vanilla.

Key lime pie. It's made from Key lime juice, lime zest, egg yolks, condensed milk and a graham cracker crust, with fresh whipped cream.

When some people see the big, thick dollops of fresh whipped cream, they think they are getting ice cream, because this rich topping is worlds removed from the stuff in the aerosal container. There's a little powder sugar and fresh vanilla extract mixed in.

Double layer chocolate cake. One of the best versions in Southern California, it comes from Northern California — a bakery called Sweet Street. The whipped cream makes it even better.

Fudge brownie pie. A woman used to bake this in her home for the Grill in Beverly Hills until the Health Department shut her down. So the company paid her $1,000 for the recipe. ''We liked it because it was like a cake but had fudge in it," said Sola. It's topped with caramel sauce and the same candied pecans as in the salad, but minus the pepper.

Service was outstanding. An essential part of founder Bob Spivak's concept was a place "where the answer is yes, what was the question?, and the guest is always right." An example: Someone at my table forgot to give the server a request about one of the dishes. When she was told, the server said that the dish had already been cooked. The diner said that would be OK. A minute later, the server came back and said the chef had tossed the dish and started another one with the requested variation.

Spivak's father owned a barbecue restaurant called Smokey Joe's, surrounded by the Kiddyland at La Cienega and Beverlywood. Among his customers were Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Spivak said, and they wrote their ''Smokey Joe's Cafe" at the restaurant.

There was also a Smokey Joe's at Coldwater and Riverside in Sherman Oaks, and from the age of 8, that's where Spivak spent every afternoon after school. "I would fold napkins and peel carrots and do anything I could do, just to be part of the restaurant," he said. "All I really wanted to do was be the dishwasher, but he was afraid to have me work around all that equipment. So they actually drew a line on the wall of the restaurant and said when I grew to be that height, I could wash dishes."

Spivak worked in his father's restaurants through high school and after he graduated — until his father sold them in 1972. Then for 10 years he ran the food department in Fedco stores and opened three Soup 'n' Such restaurants.

He burned out and walked away from them and had three jobs in the next three years, all connected with food, such as selling organic vegetables, but none in restaurants. Meanwhile, his personal life was also going into the pits.

"In 1982, I was getting divorced, with two children 9 and 10 years old, living at my father's because I didn't have enough money to rent my own apartment, and I got together with Mike Weinstock, who had been very successful in the home security business." Weinstocks son was on the Little League team Spivak coached.

"We got together for lunch one day in February, 1982, and I kind of described for him my dream restaurant. This was the time of great pretense in the restaurant business in Los Angeles. Michael's in Santa Monica had made an art form of how small the portions could be and how high the prices. There was a restaurant in West Hollywood by the name of Ma Maison where Wolfgang Puck was the chef, and they had an unlisted number. You couldn't call there even if you wanted to.

"My idea was to do a New York bar and San Francisco type American restaurant, much like the Tadich Grill, or Musso and Frank's, which is still there in Hollywood.

"Mike really liked the sound of this hoole thing, so we shook hands on this deal, where he would go out and raise the money and I would find the location. He and I would develop the concept, and I would open the restaurant and run it.

"I got up to make a phone call after making the deal of my life, and as I walked through the restaurant, a blond woman stopped me and said, 'Excuse me, but aren't you Bobby Spivak?' I looked at her and realized we had gone to Van Nuys Junior High School together and hadn't seen each other in 23 years. And that blond woman is my wife today — Leslie. She's the love of my life, and we've virtually never been apart since that day."

He found a location on Dayton Way, 50 feet west of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, and the Grill was opened Jan. 31, 1984, and "just took off almost immediately. One of the very fortunate things for us was that William Morris was in walking distance, and the agents started bringing in all their clients. We started catering to people like Barbra Streisand, Fred Astaire and Johnny Carson."

Five years later the partners came up with the idea of the Daily Grill, a more popularly priced version of the Grill. The prices don't seem all that popular, but they are when compared with the Grill.

As an example, Spivak pointed to the Certified Genuine Angus High End Choice beef served in Long Beach, which he compared to the prime beef served at the Grill that costs twice as much. ''Genuine Angus is a very fine cut of meat," he said, "but prime is prime."

''At the Grill, we fly our fresh seafood in from all over the world. We bring our swordfish in from the East Coast, the stone crabs from Florida, the John Dory from New Zealand and fresh Dover sole. Whereas at the Daily Grill, we also use all fresh seafood, but more local. The ahi tuna and swordfish are local."

Also, the service at the Grill is much more formal, Spivak said.

The Long Beach Daily Grill is different from the other 18 Daily Grills (with new ones to open in Santa Monica in two weeks and downtown Los Angeles in May) and four Grills. If you look at the small menu given to customers to take home in Long Beach, it's much different from the menu actually used in the restaurant. What's going on?

''We make changes regionally, and we actually make them locally as well," Spivak said. "In Los Angeles, the short ribs (my father's recipe) are not very popular anymore. In Washington, D.C., and Chicago, they're among the best selling items on the menu."

When Spivak was opening the Grill, he found a kindred soul in Chef John Sola, who moved to Lake Tahoe from Southern California at 21 to become a blackjack dealer. But before Harrah's would hire him, he had to go to dealer school, and his unemployment was running out. "And I said, 'I'll take any job,' and they said, 'What about food prep?' "

Sola grew up in a family that cooked together, and after he started prepping food for the buffet line, he switched careers, staying at Harrah's and working at all the resort's restaurant up to the French restaurant at the top called the Summit. He went on to become executive chef for the Heavenly Valley ski resort for 3 1/2 years, and then, through a friend, got a job at the Chronicle restaurant in Pasadena.

There he worked under Chef Rolf Nonnast, who was his major influence. The German chef's teachings were valuable when Spivak explained the kind of food he wanted at the Grill. "Rolf taught me to keep it simple, kind of like the KISS method. So the food that we were doing at the Chronicle was simple, even though it was European Continental type food.

"We had veal Oscar, we had chauteaubriand, but he taught it very straightforward. The ingredients were very simple. He didn't overload it with four or five different flavors. For instance, the best way to eat Dover sole is to pan fry it with lemon butter sauce. Don't try to make a cheese sauce on it. Don't try to bone it or broil it. All you're going to do is make it hard and rubbery.

"So with the Grill menu it's the same thing: straightforward and keeping it simple. With what I had learned, I was able to walk right into the Grill. And my crew came over from the Chronicle after a year, so it was very easy. You get a lot of the same food. My Swedish split pea soup is just basically our split pea soup now."

During the year it took to build the first restaurant, Spivak and Sola met twice a week, visiting restaurants such as Musso and Frank's, the Apple Pan and Felipe's French dip stand in downtown Los Angeles so that Sola would understand the tradition behind the new Grill.

All the preparation paid off for the aspiring dish washer and the aspiring blackjack dealer. And their Long Beach restaurant seems to be maintaining the high standards that have made them successful.

[LAMetroGuy]

Nice... there is a huge amount of new restaurants opening up in LB. There is also a huge amount of already existing restaurants. Lotsa good eats!

[glidescube]

I'm still concerend about that huge asphalt area next to the aquarium--It's just plain ugly. If they need a hard sruface there becasue of the Grand-prix, then pave it in colored concrete and make some artistic design out of it.