Small business, big gains: Mom-and-pop shops, cafes lead North Long Beach revival

Leoh Sandoval, regarded as the founder of the Virginia Village corridor in North Long Beach stands outside his restaurant, Aguas Way on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2020. Photo by Sebastian Echeverry. The sounds of reggaeton playing from loud speakers outside a Latin party supply depot echo down Long Beach Boulevard. The music bounces from a Vietnamese pho restaurant across the street to a Salvidorian pupuseria. To the north is Black Ring Coffee , a contemporary coffee shop where people keep up with oat-milk lattes and nitro cold brews, and on the southern end of the boulevard sits Aguas Way , a Mexican-inspired juicery and restaurant with home-grown ingredients. Fast-food chains and big-brand restaurants seem to have overlooked this business corridor, where almost none are in sight. North Long Beach, a community that shares a border with Compton, Paramount and Bellflower, is reinventing itself. A diverse mix of cultures and businesses are spearheading an up-and-coming small-business corridor called Virginia Village, located at the area’s southern tip where facades of deco-inspired architecture harken back to the 1920s, before the recent growth in small businesses. Storefront for Aguas Way, a Mexican-inspired restaurant and juicery, located along the Virginia Village business corridor in North […]

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