2nd & PCH Has Become the Front Door for Restaurants New to Long Beach

Four food brands that had never operated a permanent Long Beach location have opened, or are about to open, at the corner of 2nd Street and Pacific Coast Highway in 2026. Sweetgreen arrived in January. Proudly Serving followed in March and Pura Vida Miami in August. Brodard, the Fountain Valley Vietnamese restaurant, is set to open Oct. 1. A fifth, IYKYK! Coffee Lab, is already pouring drinks from a vintage trailer outside its future Marina Pacifica space while it builds out its café.

Three more first-in-Long-Beach brands have been announced for the same stretch of PCH. So the shopping centers around this intersection, 2nd & PCH, Marina Pacifica, the Marketplace and the corner at Loynes Drive, are now the main place where restaurant brands from outside the city choose to make their Long Beach debut. If you live in Naples, the Peninsula, Belmont Shore or around Alamitos Bay, that changes what "a new place opened near us" usually means.

Seven storefronts, one stretch of highway

Most of these arrivals moved into spaces left by tenants that had been there for years. The table pairs each address with the previous tenant reported for that space and where things stood as of the end of September.

The closures came in quick succession this spring. Jade on the Water had taken over the 7,000-square-foot former Forbidden City space at Marina Pacifica in 2019. Owner Rod Frontino confirmed it would close permanently on Monday, Mar. 23. His sign said Jade was closing "to pursue new concepts and opportunities." Buffalo Wild Wings at Marina Pacifica served its last day on April 26. Each of those departures opened a large space on a corner that draws a lot of traffic. The table shows that brands from outside the city have been the ones filling them.

What the newcomers bring with them

Each new tenant brings something the shopping centers didn't have before, and in a couple of cases something the whole city has been short on.

Brodard by the Shore comes with the longest history. Diane Dang and her daughters opened Brodard in 1996. It became one of Little Saigon's best-known restaurants and moved its main dining room to its current Fountain Valley home in 2017. Los Angeles Times critic Bill Addison included it on his list of the best restaurants in California. Its signature dish is Nem Nướng Cuốn, a rice-paper roll wrapped around herbs, crisp egg-roll skin and a grilled pork patty. The kitchen makes thousands of them a day. Longbeachize's Brian Addison called the city's Vietnamese food scene "lacking." He named Sesame Dinette and Pickle Banh Mi as part of a small group of traditional Vietnamese spots that Brodard now joins. The 2nd & PCH tenant page lists daily hours of 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Proudly Serving is a South Bay smash-burger shop. Owner Matt McIvor had spent a long time looking for a permanent spot in Long Beach. Locals may remember the brand from its pop-up inside Beachwood downtown, before that space became ISM Brewing. At the Long Beach location, the chicken sandwich is on the permanent menu, which isn't the case at its other shops.

Pura Vida Miami is a wellness café from Omer and Jennifer Horev, and Long Beach is its fourth California location after Malibu, Beverly Hills and Costa Mesa. It faces Marina Drive in the space Noble Rotisserie used to occupy.

Sweetgreen opened its first Long Beach location in the Marketplace complex at the southeast corner of the intersection, just west of Trader Joe's.

IYKYK! Coffee Lab started in Huntington Beach and then added a shop on the Orange Coast College campus in Costa Mesa. It's known for specialty drinks like the Honey Love and the You Salty Dog. Bobby Hernandez, who used to own Recreational Coffee, told Longbeachize that someone at IYKYK had made him "one of the best espressos I've had in a minute."

Two blocks west, the new places come from people already here

The pattern is clearer when you look at what opened on 2nd Street over the same months. Most of those openings came from operators who already had a history in Long Beach.

• Massimo's, at 5616 E. 2nd St. in Naples, comes from Massimo Aronne, who led Michael's on Naples through its run before it closed in late 2025. It took over the former market space he used to manage under the Michael's Restaurant Group, and it opened Feb. 4.
• Anna's Pizza Joint, at 5351 E. 2nd St., is from the owners of Anna's Joint downtown. It sits right next to Domenico's, the city's oldest pizzeria, and sells pizza by the slice. It opened in early March.
• CoffeeDrunk, at 4708 E. 2nd St., is the brand's fourth Long Beach location.
• South of Nick's is in the historic former Citibank building at 5354 E. 2nd St. It's a sibling to Nick's on 2nd, which the same Irvine-based group has run on the street for close to a decade. It opened June 15.
• Sorry Not Sorry Creamery opened at 4612 E. 2nd St.

Even South of Nick's, technically a first Long Beach location, came from a group already established on the street. So the two corridors are growing in different ways. On 2nd Street, operators who already know the neighborhood are expanding or starting over. At PCH, brands are making their first move into the city. Both stretches are within a short walk of the same homes, so the area around the intersection now gets both kinds of new places.

What's still under construction or only announced

Several of the most-discussed names on PCH haven't opened yet. Here's what was confirmed as of the end of September.

• IYKYK! Coffee Lab's permanent café is under construction at 6324 E. PCH Suite B. The June announcement aimed for an opening by the end of summer. For now the trailer is the only way to get a drink.
• Alfred Coffee is an L.A. chain with more than 20 locations in the county. It announced its first Long Beach shop in April, in the former Local Spot space at the southwest corner of PCH and Loynes Drive. Longbeachize's September roundup still didn't list it as open.
• Aloha Stacks is a family-owned Hawaiian-inspired brunch spot. Nixon and Ovita Tanuwidjaja founded it in Dana Point in 2010, and it now has a dozen locations. It was announced for the Marina Market Place at 6507 E. PCH, and its ube pancakes are coming with it. That announcement came in September 2025, and the 2026 roundup still didn't list it as open.
• Nantucket was announced for the former Jade space at 6380 E. PCH Suite A. It would be the first expansion for Montauk, the Black-owned jazz supper club in Redondo Beach. The concept is East Coast-style seafood and steaks with live music. No opening date has been reported.

If all four open, seven brands will have made their Long Beach debut within about a mile of PCH. Two of the area's biggest vacancies, Jade's 7,000 square feet and the old Starbucks, would be in use again.

This October at the corner

Brodard's opening day is the first chance to try the new lineup, at 11 a.m. on Oct. 1. The IYKYK! trailer is open Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the main level of Marina Pacifica. From the main entrance, take your first left and look between Barnes & Noble and Chipotle. The same center has Nigel's at Anchors Away, at 6276 E. PCH. It opened in August 2025 with seats on the water and Duffy boat rentals, so it now counts as one of the established spots here.

Over on 2nd Street, the 2nd Street Scene art exhibit runs through Oct. 17. The Belmont Shore Book Fair is Sunday, Oct. 25, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 5200 E. 2nd St. Halloween Trick-or-Treat on 2nd Street runs Saturday, Oct. 31, from 4 to 6 p.m. Participating storefronts hand out treats for as long as each business can take part, depending on its closing time and supplies.

Deb Kahookele follows openings and closings like these across Long Beach because which storefronts are filling up, and who's signing the leases, shapes how a neighborhood feels day to day. If you own a home near Alamitos Bay or Belmont Shore and want to know what your home is worth with this corner in its current state, DK Realty Grp can put together a clear, local picture. Get Your Free Home Valuation.