East Long Beach Quietly Filled In Its Two Longest Vacancies
August 20, 2026
August 20, 2026
When contractors gutted the old Huff's Family Restaurant building at Wardlow Road and Norwalk Boulevard this past winter, they found something nobody on the crew expected: a safe, built straight into the concrete of the back office, with no key, no combination, and no record of what was inside. The building had sat boarded up for five years after Huff's closed during the pandemic, ending a run that had lasted 65 years as one of the neighborhood's steady, unglamorous diners. Whatever was locked in that safe had been waiting at least that long, maybe longer.
Hal and Cindy Mooney, the family who signed the lease on the space and spent the better part of a year turning it into Mooney's Pizza Tavern, decided the mystery deserved a party rather than a quiet call to a locksmith. That instinct, treat the corner's history like something worth celebrating instead of demolishing, turns out to be the more useful thread for understanding what has actually happened in East Long Beach this year. This isn't a story about one trendy opening pulling attention from Belmont Shore or Downtown. It's a story about two of the area's longest-standing vacancies filling back in, on opposite ends of the same stretch of the city, within months of each other.
Mooney's opened its doors on Friday, February 27, at 4 p.m., and the Mooneys kept as much of the original Huff's structure as they could. The concept leans hard into 1980s and 90s tavern nostalgia: custom booths, arcade games, red plastic cups, and a "hidden" back room built for the kind of birthday parties that used to define a childhood. The dough comes from a house starter culture the Mooneys call Ruzu, and the menu splits between classic round pies and a few Detroit-style pans, alongside fried Wisconsin cheese curds, a Chicago wedge salad, and frozen custard for dessert.
Two details make it feel less like a concept and more like a neighborhood fixture already. There's a table game called Chickens Come to Roost that decides who gets the last slice, and a boot-shaped cup reserved strictly for achievements, not birthdays, that one regular already used to celebrate getting a school accredited. Hal Mooney has said plainly that the goal is to be a great neighborhood restaurant, not a destination that pulls people from across town.
That mystery safe finally got its moment on Sunday, May 3, at a walk-in event called the Grand Safe Opening. Five-dollar raffle tickets bought a shot at whatever was inside, or a year of free pizza if the safe turned out to be empty, with every dollar going to Casa Youth Shelter, the Los Alamitos nonprofit that provides emergency shelter for youth ages 12 to 17. The same weekend, Mooney's launched its permanent Saturday and Sunday hours, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., giving the corner a full-day option it hadn't had in years.
While the Wardlow corridor was getting its diner back, a different kind of vacancy was closing up near Cal State Long Beach. The CVS at Seventh Street and Bellflower Boulevard closed in 2023 and was demolished by early 2024, leaving Westar Associates, the Newport Beach firm that owns Bixby Village Plaza, with a single large pad and a decision to make. Rather than rebuild for one tenant, Westar split the site into four smaller restaurant spaces, a bet that a plaza already anchored by Target, Starbucks, and Ike's Sandwiches, and sitting a short walk from both CSULB and the Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center, had room for more variety than one drive-thru could offer.
Construction wrapped in early 2026, and by this summer the full lineup had opened: California Fish Grill in Suite A-1, serving sustainably sourced seafood; The Melt, marking its first Long Beach location with grilled cheese and burgers; Luna Grill, bringing Mediterranean bowls, kabobs, and gyros; and Urbane Café, opening its second Long Beach spot after an earlier location at Long Beach Exchange. Four storefronts, four different cuisines, filled into a footprint that used to hold one pharmacy.
The same redevelopment also solved a different kind of problem, for a restaurant that already had a following. HiroNori Craft Ramen opened its original Long Beach location back in 2018 at 610 East Carson Street in Bixby Knolls, and built a loyal crowd around a 24-hour simmered tonkotsu broth and scratch-made noodles. The chain held a spot on the California Michelin guide for six consecutive years before losing that mention in 2024, a loss that stung locals more than it seemed to hurt business.
This year, HiroNori opened a second East Long Beach location inside Bixby Village Plaza, at 5718 East Seventh Street, taking over a space that had briefly belonged to Mad Dumplings before that concept closed not long after its 2023 opening. What's worth noticing isn't just that HiroNori expanded. It's that the expansion didn't require leaving the neighborhood at all. Two locations, a few miles apart, both inside the same stretch of East Long Beach, is a quieter kind of vote of confidence than a splashy opening across town.
One practical note for anyone making weekend plans: Bixby Village Plaza is now home to both Luna Grill, the Mediterranean fast-casual chain, and Luna Bistro & Cafe, an existing local spot that predates the redevelopment entirely. They are not the same restaurant, and telling a friend to "meet at Luna" is no longer specific enough. The corner's current roster, at a glance:
The pattern shows up a third time on Atlantic Avenue, where Bixby Provisions has become one of Long Beach's newest additions, bringing a gastropub-style menu to a corridor that already includes HiroNori's original outpost. It's a smaller story than the other two, but it fits the same shape: existing commercial space in an established part of East Long Beach getting reoccupied rather than a new destination getting built from scratch somewhere flashier.
None of this is East Long Beach becoming a food destination in the way Downtown or Belmont Shore already are. It's something more specific and, for the people who already live here, more useful. The two hardest-to-fill vacancies on this side of the city, a shuttered pharmacy pad near a university and a boarded-up diner at a five-way intersection, both got occupied in the same stretch of 2026. Neither required importing a concept from somewhere trendier. One brought back a family restaurant tradition with a pizza twist. The other split a single tenant's footprint into four, plus a ramen shop that already knew the neighborhood well enough to open twice in it.
If you've been driving past either corner for years assuming it would stay empty, it's worth a second look. And if you're the kind of person who keeps track of how a neighborhood actually changes, not the postcard version but the corner-by-corner reality, that instinct tends to be useful well beyond dinner plans. If you'd ever like to talk through what's shifting in East Long Beach or any of the coastal Orange County neighborhoods nearby, Nick Lombardo is happy to share what he's seeing on the ground. Let's Connect.
Stay up to date on the latest real estate trends.
From initial consultation to closing, experience a thoughtful, strategic approach tailored to your goals.