Nestled in the center of the Bixby Hill neighborhood just east of Cal State Long Beach, Rancho Los Alamitos stands as a historic landmark in Long Beach. Wandering through the adobe ranch house, serene gardens and barns on its 7.5 acres can feel like stepping back in time.
Now, visitors are invited to enjoy the rancho in a new way. A small cafe named The Little Adobe recently started serving seasonal brunch items and coffee on the first and third Sundays of each month.
“Giving [people] another opportunity to be here in a different context is really, really special,” Erin Wilson, the director of development at Rancho Los Alamitos, said.
Wilson and Development Assistant Merinelle Marchione opened The Little Adobe on June 21, but they started dreaming of a cafe at the rancho long before that.
Marchione has imagined opening some sort of restaurant at the rancho since she started working there nine years ago. When Executive Director Tim Roberts asked her to help brainstorm ideas to make better use of the catering kitchen last year, it was the perfect opportunity to bring her ideas to life.
In November, they started hosting monthly coffee pop-ups in partnership with The June Brew to see if people would be interested in a cafe at the rancho. The positive response was overwhelming.
“Just seeing the vision come to life, that’s been really fun,” Marchione said.
What is the ranco?
The story of Rancho Los Alamitos begins with the Gabrielino-Tongva people. The sacred village of Puvunga, the site where the Tongva people say they were created, was located where Cal State Long Beach and Rancho Los Alamitos now sit.
In 1790, Manuel Nieto received 300,000 acres of land from the Spanish Crown, though this was later reduced to 167,000 acres. He eventually divided the land into five sections and one of those sections became Rancho Los Alamitos. John William Bixby bought the land in 1878, and it was a working ranch until the family gave it to the city of Long Beach in 1968.
The menu
Marchione, who is in charge of the menu, hopes to connect the food back to that history. She said in the future she would love to incorporate recipes from the Bixbys’ ranch cook Lydia Shinkle and traditional Tongva foods.
The current menu features quiche, peanut butter or avocado toast, a breakfast sandwich on an English muffin, a turkey or ham sandwich, and an arugula salad. You can also grab pastries and coffee to go if you’d rather stroll.
Wilson and Marchione know that the location at the rancho will draw customers in, but it’s the food that will get them to come back. They are prioritizing quality, locally-sourced ingredients and are constantly trying to improve their product.
“We want to reflect the quality of not only our current standards as an organization, but the standards of the Bixbys and the other folks who lived here and called this place home,” Wilson said. “Their standards were very high, which is why this place still stands today, hundreds of years later.”
Wilson has loved seeing the role The Little Adobe has played thus far in furthering the mission of the rancho.
Two women came into the cafe last Sunday and stayed at the rancho hours after they finished eating. They had their breakfast, then explored the rancho as they chatted. The women came back to the cafe for some coffee later, then walked around some more.
The Little Adobe exists for moments exactly like that.
The Little Adobe is next to the museum store at Rancho Los Alamitos, 6400 E. Bixby Hill Road. The cafe is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the first and third Sundays of each month. Reservations are required before 1 p.m. You can learn more about visiting the Rancho here.