It is a story that Spot Cafe owner Mitchell Stein said will continue for establishments that don’t serve alcohol: Rising rents and the efficiency of online delivery services will close small restaurants\u2014his own included after the popular Belmont Shore cafe was forced to close its doors.<\/p>\n
While Stein has two other Spot locations that will remain open\u2014one in Claremont and another in Upland\u2014his Long Beach location<\/a> closed up shop last week after Stein received a notice that his rent would rise from $9,200 per month to $13,000.<\/p>\n “The rents are out of control. I am not sure what else to say,” Stein said. “It’s why so many places are leaving Second Street: With the delivery services and ridiculous rent prices, it doesn’t make sense to remain open. The only thing that can survive is a bar.”<\/p>\n The story of rent costs, especially in Belmont Shore, is nothing new. The Rubber Tree, on Second Street for more than 25 years, closed up shop earlier this year<\/a>, as did\u00a0Jack in the Box after 57 years,\u00a0Herman\u2019s Shoe Fashions after 52 years, Jamba Juice after a decade, and\u00a0Jones Bicycles after\u00a0serving the community for over a century<\/a>. Even Stein’s assertion that a bar can survive stands on shaky ground: Acapulco Inn, one of the city’s oldest watering holes, which opened in 1955, shuttered its windows<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year.<\/p>\n https:\/\/lbpost.com\/business\/second-street-businesses-belmont-shore\/<\/p>\n Stein himself took over Nature Well with Spot Cafe because its previous owners couldn’t afford the upticks in rents once their yearly leases came to an end.<\/p>\n Stein said the the hefty rent hikes, including the\u00a0nearly 40-percent bump for his location at\u00a04725 E Second St., will hurt the neighborhood in the long run.<\/p>\n “Many long-term residents are leaving,” Stein said. “The landlords are not being smart about catering to a diverse assortment of small businesses. They are only focused on rents and keeping them up as high as possible\u2014which will backfire in the long run because other areas in the city are being developed and thriving because the landlords are making sure there is a mixture of tenants. Someone at the city level really should step in with these landlords, or at least address it.”<\/p>\n Brian Addison is a columnist and editor for the Long Beach Post.\u00a0<\/em>Reach him at\u00a0brian@lbpost.com or on social media at Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, and LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While two other Spot locations will remain open, the Long Beach location closed after a notice that rent would rise by nearly $4,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":65974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[139],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-restaurant-closure","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}