{"id":26650,"date":"2021-10-14T14:39:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T21:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000022591"},"modified":"2023-03-20T00:02:06","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T07:02:06","slug":"extraordinary-banana-pudding-opens-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/food\/extraordinary-banana-pudding-opens-long-beach","title":{"rendered":"The sweet story behind Long Beach’s new pudding place, Extraordinary Banana Pudding"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Toran Grays’ family, it was a well-known fact that on the rare occasion banana pudding was served at a family function, you better grab a plate before it was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy aunt and my mom would make a couple trays and literally they [friends and family] would eat it before they would eat dinner,\u201d Grays said.<\/p>\n

The coveted dessert was a family recipe created by Grays\u2019 great-grandmother, Agnes White, and passed down generations to the women in his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a kid, I loved when my great-grandmother was making it,\u201d the 38-year-old said. \u201cBut I never thought about turning it into a business.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Toran Grays, owner, stands n front of a refrigerator full of different flavors of banana pudding at Extraordinary Banana Pudding in Long Beach Wednesday, October 6, 2021. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It wasn\u2019t until at a Thanksgiving dinner in 2018 that a life-altering thought entered his mind. His family had, yet again, demolished trays of the dessert and as he watched the frenzy, he wagered that other people might be just as enamored with the silky dessert.<\/p>\n

His mother and aunt readily passed along the recipe at his request. He decided to tweak it, mainly by dialing back the sweetness, and he began making it for friends and family with great success. But it wasn\u2019t until he catered a retirement party for the Navy in San Diego, his hometown, that demand skyrocketed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was busy for four months straight, they were calling me every weekend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In between his full-time job as a general manager for Catalina Offshore, San Diego\u2019s premium fish market, Grays devoted all his free time to selling pudding. Eight months later he had saved $20,000 to open his first brick-and-mortar in La Mesa, a city in San Diego County, on March 14, 2020.<\/p>\n

A year-and-a-half and over half a million dollars in banana pudding sales later, Grays opened his second location in Long Beach. Grays said he became captivated by the city while visiting a friend for their birthday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the whole atmosphere of the city. Everything. And I was like, you know what, maybe this would be a great place for my second location,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 2, nearly 300 people visited Extraordinary Banana Pudding<\/a> to support and celebrate the new business on Long Beach Boulevard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really nice day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Banana Pudding San Diego (@extraordinarybananapudding)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n