Little Coyote, the popular pizza restaurant on Retro Row at 2118 E. Fourth St., was opened last summer by business partners Jack Leahy and Jonathan Strader and was an instant hit on the trendy dining and shopping corridor.
Now after one successful year, the owners are opening a second location on, appropriately enough, Los Coyotes Diagonal in East Long Beach, at the former home of the short-lived Lou & Mike’s restaurant, at 3500 Los Coyotes Diagonal.
Strader and Leahy have a lot of experience in the food business and they opened Hatchet Hall, an American wood-fire restaurant in Venice in 2015.
The pair chose the Los Coyotes location chiefly for the size of its commissary kitchen and its patio, which can hold 80 customers at 100% capacity, which isn’t really a thing yet, though the partners hope things will continue to ease in terms of pandemic restrictions. The building itself is about 1,900 square feet, “and most of that’s kitchen,” said Strader. “Getting a large kitchen was the final piece of the puzzle in terms of what we were looking for.”
“Hopefully, this new location will be a bit more community and family oriented, a bit more like an old-fashioned pizza parlor,” said Strader, noting that the Fourth Street location, with little room for diners, is more of a “grab-a-pizza-and-go” place.
“It will also give us a chance to expand our menu some,” said Leahy. “Maybe add some pasta items.”
The owners hope to open Little Coyote No. 2 on June 1.