If you know any of us here at LB Food Review, you know we love to eat. But if you know that, you probably also know that we enjoy the social as much as the savory. That's why we're kicking off this adventure, not with some snooty swish-and-spit tasting session, but with a good ol' fashioned Bar Crawl.

Photo above and below courtesy of Seabirds.

Vegans and veggie lovers should be ecstatic that food truck pioneer Seabirds Kitchen is opening a brick-and-mortar at 965 E 4th St. at the former Bond’s Home Appliances building that was lost in a fire last year.

This marks 2017’s second vegan option, following Rainbow Juice’s announcement of their Under The Sun vegan restaurant just west of their shop in DTLB at 3rd and Long Beach Blvd.

Screen Shot 2017-03-08 at 10.56.05 AMFamous for their beer-battered avocado tacos, Seabirds opened its truck in 2010 with the sole mission of “pushing the boundaries of vegan cuisine.” That mission proved successful, giving the restaurant, well, an actual restaurant with a location at Costa Mesa’s The LAB (whose owner, Shaheen Sadeghi, bought a huge lot in North Long Beach).

“As we’ve grown from a food truck into our current restaurant, our artisan approach has remained true,” said founder Stephanie Morgan. “We make our sauces and condiments from scratch. We base our menu around seasonal produce, unique flavor combinations and creative techniques and we use top-notch ingredients and locally grown fruits and vegetables.”

It will be a welcomed and much-needed vegan option—directly across from a McDonald’s, by the way, scoring extra points for Awesome Dichotomy—for the stretch of 4th that is home to everything from Hole Mole’s fast Mexican to Number Nine’s wypipo phở.

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The soon-to-be location of 123 Pho. Photo by Brian Addison

Speaking of phở, Downtowners and visitors to DTLB will no longer be relegated to the tiny walls of Java Junction to score their bowl of the famed Vietnamese soup. Opening at 210 E. 3rd St. will be 123 Pho, the first joint solely dedicated to phở in the Downtown.

Taking up the space just east of Dog Haus, 123 Pho marks the completion of holes filled in the complex, with Beachwood, Michael’s, and Dog Haus taking over all the groundfloor leasing space for the 210 E. 3rd complex.