Photos by Trevor Roberson
12:30pm | Editor’s Note: This is an expansion on our print coverage of the Best of Long Beach. Given our limited print space, we wanted to further share our experience at these amazing businesses via the many photos we took. We feel it not only allows the reader to better understand why each place was chosen, but provides the chance to spotlight local businesses visually. We will do one business every day until all 30 winners have been covered. Enjoy.
Best Burger: The Factory
It is more than the burger.
More than the 10 ounces of grass fed beefy goodness. More than the manchego cheese that adorns it. More than the fact that mayo doesn’t touch it – just spicy mustard. More than the inclusion of – amongst their outrageously absurd beer selection that would make any beer snob salivate – Knee Deep Hoptologist Double IPA (which is comparable to Russian River’s Pliney the Elder as one of the best in the world). It is even more than the fact that when you ask anyone — anyone — where lies the best place to grub in Bixby Knolls, the answer is always continuously The Factory.
It is her. Natalie Gutenkauf, owner and master brains of mania behind the paradisiacal gastronome that is The Factory in Bixby Knolls. And while she can exuberantly talk about practically anything that has to do with culinary ingestion, this new restaurateur – The Factory opened in December of 2009 – is passionate about a single thing: people having a good time and going after that good time.
“I’m all over the place,” she laughs. “I mean, come on: a former marketing director for a symphony to an art academy teacher to opening a restaurant in the worst economy in history?” She pauses and then with a mischievous grin, looks up from her beer and admits: “I didn’t tell anyone. I was about to sign my life away on a lease and I hadn’t even told my husband.”
It was Natalie’s nostalgia for a former gastropub in Texas, The Flying Saucer, that brought her to the point of just following through with taking on a gastropub herself. Two years after opening, The Factory has established itself as the place to grub and get your hop on while being able to loosen the tie and slip off the heels.
The Factory, 4020 Atlantic Avenue, 562) 595-4020
