Lengthy Seaside’s New Dive Bar Hangout Embraces Thrift Retailer Stylish

Gianna Johns and Daniel Flores had lengthy needed a spot in Lengthy Seaside. The soon-to-be-married pair have spent many childhood right here, in Flores’s hometown, with Johns crafting her personal recollections of household time spent in Belmont Shore. Now, quietly, they’ve made their dream come true, opening Child Gee (a nickname for Gianna) within the former Crimson Room bar on bustling Fourth Road. The journey has been an extended one, with loads of DIY building and paperwork complications — however earlier than all that, Flores and Johns had to determine what Child Gee would even be.

Earlier than the pink peppercorn-dusted and tonka bean-infused cocktails — served with honey-drizzled flatbreads and house-pickled veggies, naturally — Johns and Flores knew that they would wish to carry the Lengthy Seaside neighborhood into early discussions concerning the imaginative and prescient for the bar. That meant patiently listening, then and now, to clients and passersby who wish to talk about the historical past of the necessary road and to supply solutions as to what the neighborhood would possibly need, or want.

“That was just about the plan all the time,” says Flores. “We didn’t wish to come right here with a large ego. We have been all the time going to get in and, as we developed, study what the neighborhood needs.”

Lengthy Seaside’s Fourth Road, residence to the well-known Retro Row and one of many metropolis’s most well-known bar scenes, has modified dramatically in recent times. Fern’s is now the Chook, Ashley’s grew to become El Barrio Cantina, and now the Crimson Room is Child Gee — every earlier tenant a once-popular hangout that now affords one thing very totally different. Shedding yet one more old-school watering gap on this bar-loving metropolis might have meant devastation for the realm, and made for an uphill battle with new enterprise homeowners Flores and Johns. The pair acquired some sideways glances only for altering the enterprise identify, though they couldn’t legally preserve the Crimson Room because it was. With so many Alcoholic Beverage Management violations on its books (prompting the Crimson Room’s closure in early 2022), officers wouldn’t even approve a license with the identical identify.

The brand new homeowners determined to lean into the modifications and the training. “As we had the dignity of attending to know the neighborhood — Daniel could be portray one thing outdoors and other people would simply cease and converse — we understood that the folks listed here are type and supportive,” says Johns. “They perceive high quality, they need it, however we now have to offer, [and] with out these loopy costs. We make stunning cocktails, however once we hand a buyer our menu, we’re very very like: ‘That is our menu and you may have the whole lot else underneath the solar when you so want!’”

For Flores, a brand new and extra numerous bar doesn’t should be inaccessible, simply totally different. “This area is about taking all of my experiences and travels and distilling all that down by means of the lens of my hometown, Lengthy Seaside,” he says. These travels have taken him by means of a few of LA’s finest eating places and bars, from Bestia and Broad Road Oyster to Tabula Rasa wine bar, whereas Johns as soon as headlined the bar on the NoMad. “[Baby Gee] will probably be totally different — it’s totally different—nevertheless it’s nonetheless Lengthy Seaside.”

On a crowded evening on the bar, Johns is admittedly in her component. She crafts cocktails on the fly, pairing Belizean rum and pistachio cream in a tiki mug, or becoming a member of rye whiskey with lemongrass and peach for a sneakily boozy punch. The A Buddy in Want cocktail combines two rums, Mount Homosexual Black Barrel rum and rhum agricole, with Punt e Mes vermouth, apricot, chilly brew, and tonka bean; the Sally on the Moon is an ode to sugar and spice that’s layered with gin, the French aperitif Kina Karo, white vermouth, pink peppercorn, and Bazooka bubble gum.

Child Gee’s interiors match its playful tackle drinks, with a flood of heat greens and pinks upon arrival. The remainder of the decor is a hodgepodge of yard sale and swap-meet finds, together with some items restored by Flores himself, surrounding small nooks and enclaves for tight teams or date-night outings. Throwback work of cats and flowers adorn the partitions.

On the meals entrance, Child Gee affords barely greater than the standard bar snacks because of a tiny however mighty “kitchen” area — actually only a convection oven and small electrical burner on the finish of the bar — that churns out spherical focaccias, heat marinated olives, an array of pickles, and extra. The focaccia is made by Pasquale Chiarappa of Della Corte Meals in Los Angeles, the identical label used at Nancy Silverton’s Mozza, and is delivered parcooked and air-sealed for straightforward ending at Child Gee. The sunshine loaves and flatbreads include olives or pepperoni, a drizzle of honey, and a few chile flakes in addition.

All of the small particulars, seen and unseen, add up, a lesson that Flores realized early throughout his youthful years as a busser at Mozza and that Johns realized rising up surrounded by wine and hospitality in Sonoma, California. They’ve helped to make Child Gee a constructive addition to Fourth Road, and to Lengthy Seaside as an entire. After many years of making an attempt by long-term enterprise homeowners like Kerstin Kansteiner of Alder & Sage and Luis Navarro and Brenda Riviera of Lola’s, it feels as if the core Fourth Road enterprise has lastly expanded past its former boundaries of Junipero and Cherry Avenues. Gusto Bread and Shady Grove Meals anchor the east at Temple Avenue and now Child Gee helps to solidify the western edge at Orange Avenue, making for one of many area’s most numerous culinary stretches.

“We hope Child Gee is for Lengthy Seaside what it’s for us: A spot that matches, that vibes with the individuals who come to it — not some spherical peg being shoved right into a sq.,” says Flores.

Child Gee bar is positioned at 1227 E. Fourth Road in Lengthy Seaside, maintaining hours from Wednesday to Sunday, 5 p.m. to midnight.

Brian Addison