First opening in 2014 at the Anaheim Packing District\u2014the shopping district that was the invention of Shaheen Sadeghi, the developer who plans on making his own mark in North Long Beach with Canvas<\/a>\u2014Georgia’s has proved to be the most successful of all the District’s restaurants. We’re talking some $2 million in sales every year.<\/p>\n But getting to that point wasn’t easy: Owner\u00a0Gretchen Shoemaker long held a catering business that served the best that soul food has to offer, from black eyed peas to mustard greens to fried pork chops slathered in gravy\u2014all dishes based upon her own mother and grandmother’s recipes being passed on from daughter to daughter.<\/p>\n Part of her passion was inextricably linked to her husband,\u00a0George, who would get her going each and every morning by putting on some “Let’s Stay Together” and, between dredging thighs of chicken in flour and buttermilk, would take her for a spin on the kitchen’s makeshift dance floor.<\/p>\n When George passed, Gretchen was left uninspired and empty\u2014but her daughter and her husband,\u00a0Nika Shoemaker-Machado and Marlon Machado, had other tricks up their sleeves come two decades later: They wanted to reinvigorate Gretchen and collaborate on a restaurant that would honor all the food that helped form her family and their memories.<\/p>\n In the words of Gretchen herself: “Anyone can cook soul food\u2014they just gotta do it with love.”<\/p>\n Long Beach Exchange is at\u00a04069 N. Lakewood Blvd.<\/em><\/p>\n Brian Addison is a columnist and editor for the Long Beach Post.\u00a0<\/em>Reach him at\u00a0brian@lbpost.com\u00a0or on social media at\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More soul food is coming to the city thanks to Anaheim-based southern charmer Georgia’s opening up a second location at LBX.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":65993,"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":[47],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-long-beach-exchange","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","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=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Georgia's](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Screen-Shot-2018-10-02-at-11.12.37-AM-970x608.png\")