Anyone who watched season one of Netflix’s “The Vince Staples Show” — a comedy inspired by the local rapper’s fictionalized life — likely spotted a few notable filming locations around Long Beach.
Sunrise Donuts on Seventh Street and El Dorado Park had some obvious cameos in the first few episodes.
The show’s second season is set to premiere on Nov. 6, and Netflix dropped the trailer Thursday, so we thought it would be perfect timing to give everyone a glimpse behind the curtain on where it’s filmed locally.
To do that, we filed a public records request for all the show’s filming permits approved by the city of Long Beach. Here’s what they revealed:
The show filmed heavily throughout Long Beach from October 2022 through March 2023. Netflix paid the city nearly $150,000 for seven permits to shoot footage on 14 different days, with tens of thousands of dollars paying for street closures staffed by police around filming locations.
A house in the Belmont Heights neighborhood near Colorado Lagoon starred as the home of Staples’ mom, named Anita and played by Vanessa Bell Calloway.
Filming also took place at Young’s Market, a small liquor store on Paramount Boulevard in the Ramona Park neighborhood where Staples grew up. Filming at the market included Staples walking down the sidewalk and stopping to buy something inside the market before hopping on the bus.
A scene with a shootout was filmed near the intersection of Market Street and Locust Avenue.
Other notable locations included:
- Golden Sails Hotel on Pacific Coast Highway at the Los Cerritos Channel
- Community Hospital on Termino Avenue
- The Granada Beach parking lot
- Bluff Park at the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and Orizaba Avenue
- Pine Avenue between Fifth and Sixth streets
- Fifth Street between Pine and Pacific avenues
- A two-story home near Virginia Country Club
- A one-story home near Ramona Park
- A one-story home on East 64th Street
- A two-story home in the Bluff Park neighborhood
- Driving shots on Country Club Drive, Pacific Avenue, San Antonio Drive, Seaside Way, Pine Avenue near Seaside Way and Shoreline Drive near Pine Avenue
Based on the records, it’s unclear how much of the filming ended up airing in season one — or if more of it will make its way into two. (If you spot any of the locations, email me at [email protected].)
One of the joys of the first season of “The Vince Staples Show” was seeing Long Beach become such a character in its plot.
As Mike Guardabascio wrote for us back when it premiered:
The show is one of the few times I’ve truly seen Long Beach get to step to center stage as the star of a TV show or movie. We’ve all seen our city as a backdrop hundreds of times, one meant to stand in for Hawaii, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, or some other nondescript urban or suburban locale.
That’s not the case on Staples’ new show, which is firmly set in the city. The first episode opens with a scene shot at Sunrise Donuts on Seventh Street. The show’s police officers are part of the “Beach Police Department,” whose logo and car decals look a lot like Long Beach’s. There are also funny nods to the city’s street culture, and locals will recognize some of the iconic Bluff Park houses used in the first episode as well.
We’re hoping that spirit persists in season two.
And Staples is promising it will feel much the same, just ratcheted up even more.
He told Entertainment Weekly that “We’re utilizing a lot of the stress and anxiety that you felt Vince deal with in Season 1, and we’re gonna allow it to boil over and put him in some very interesting positions.”
Season two premieres Nov. 6 on Netflix.