After two decades in business, Broadway Pizza in downtown Long Beach has closed its doors for good.
The reason for the decision was multi-faceted, said owner Mike Rosetti, but ultimately more people working from home limited his customer base and made it tough to square rising costs of food, labor and insurance in a business that’s notorious for having thin margins.
Five break-ins over his final 18 months in business made it even tougher to justify staying open, Rosetti said.
There was also the time last year that SWAT officers spent hours searching his business for an armed robber who had scurried into it from the adjacent 7-Eleven.
The result was a full-day of lost sales and tear-gas residue in his kitchen. Adding insult to injury, the robber evaded arrest that night. Security camera footage showed he sauntered out unnoticed as Rosetti was cleaning up the mess.
Rosetti said that one incident didn’t cause him to close. It was more so an accumulation of minor “headaches” that piled up recently. One example: He said that, on occasion, when contractors hired by the local business improvement district powerwashed the sidewalk, they did so from out to in, pushing dirty water under his door and inside his business.
Instead of staying in Long Beach, he’ll focus on a different business he runs with his girlfriend: Rossmoor Donuts & Coffee in Los Alamitos.
Broadway Pizza’s history
Leaving downtown is a big change for Rosetti. He’s worked in the neighborhood since 1992 when he was mentored into the hospitality industry by John Morris, the owner of Mum’s restaurant.
Mum’s was a fixture on Pine Avenue from the late ’80’s through the mid 2000s, establishing itself as a popular meeting place during the Long Beach Grand Prix. Its success brought in other businesses like King’s Fish House to an area where the Blue Line was still under construction.
Morris, who now owns Boathouse on the Bay across town, remembered Rosetti as “a hell of a worker.”
“He ran a great operation. His food was great. His pizzas were awesome,” Morris said. “I ordered him quite a bit to my house on Sunday nights.”
Rosetti remodeled Broadway Pizza three times since it first opened in 2006 and said this latest iteration was his favorite.
He took pride in providing a memorable sit down experience for patrons and offered a full bar. Rosetti thought residents moving into the newly built apartment buildings nearby would sustain him, but that didn’t happen.
Despite a temporary bump from the city’s World Cup watch parties a short walk from his business, Rosetti said the restaurant’s bottom line never recovered after pandemic closures in 2020.
Before the pandemic, things were looking up in 2019, Rosetti said. He had “so many HR” people that he had courted over the years for mid-week catering orders.
Those consistent sales to offices and office workers had sustained him for years. Once they left, he found it hard to land repeat customers.
“You get some good customers and then, all of a sudden they’re like, I’m moving to Orange County, moving to LA, moving to wherever,” Rosetti said.
Turnover in downtown
Broadway Pizza’s closure will leave a stretch of four adjacent vacant storefronts on Broadway just east of Pine Avenue, an intersection at the heart of downtown’s entertainment district. The Pinkberry next to Rosetti’s business closed earlier this year after more than a decade.
Recently, downtown hit a commercial vacancy rate of 35.3% — higher than Irvine, El Segundo and downtown Los Angeles.
Those stats come at a time where downtowns across the country are experiencing a shift in identity. Once hubs for office workers — and businesses relying on that economic engine — urban cores across the state are trying to reinvent themselves.
The Downtown Long Beach Alliance, a local business improvement district funded by a portion of business permit fees, has redoubled its efforts to draw people downtown for events like art festivals, block parties with legal public drinking and watch parties for events like the World Cup.
In June, the city also opened a shorefront amphitheater meant to draw visitors — and their dollars — downtown before and after concerts.
Austin Metoyer, DTLB Alliance’s president and CEO, said he was sad to learn of Broadway Pizza’s closure. It had “been a longtime fixture,” he said, but he’s encouraged by new businesses on the horizon.
For example, Dirty Birds — a San Diego-based chain known for its chicken wings — is preparing to move in just across the street.