Behind the bar at The Ordinarie Tavern in Downtown Long Beach, Clare Le Bras spent much of Saturday’s shift scrambling to turn out drinks as a line accumulated out the door.
After a bartender called in sick, Le Bras — the bar’s general manager — had to fill in to manage the rush on one of their busiest afternoons in a long time.
It was stressful, Le Bras said, but — more importantly — it was a welcome reprieve from the typical worries of managing a downtown restaurant after the pandemic: slow weekends, no lunch rush and sometimes broken windows.
The scene was thanks to an experiment Long Beach was running. That day, Aug. 2, was the first time the city sanctioned an “entertainment zone,” a limited public area where drinking and walking around with an open container of alcohol are allowed.
Roughly 2,000 people attended, said Ian McCall, owner of nearby ISM Brewing – one of the four bars to participate in the one-block event held on The Promenade between Broadway and Third Street.
The boost in sales outpaced the brewery’s anniversary party last November, McCall said.
Le Bras estimated that sales numbers at The Ordinarie were “double” what they do on a typical Saturday.
Le Bras and McCall, who have worked downtown for a combined 35 years, said they originally didn’t know how big a crowd to expect. Now, McCall says, entertainment zones are exactly what businesses need to breathe life into an area that has struggled to rebound after the pandemic shifted workers away from downtown office buildings, and complaints about vandalism and break-ins have become more common.
Le Bras said she heard concerns that public drinking could lead to a Bourbon Street-like environment, but parents and children attended Saturday to dance to the live music by a band that included the bassist from Fishbone and participate in family-friendly activities.
A Long Beach Police Department spokesperson said there were no reported incidents related to the event.
“There was no one getting completely hammered. We didn’t have to cut anybody off,” Le Bras said. “It was just a really good feel to it.”
The Downtown Long Beach Alliance, a multimillion-dollar nonprofit that manages two local business improvement districts on the city’s behalf, planned and hosted the event. And they promise more are coming.
The organization will discuss when to have the next entertainment zone event, which could come “as early as October,” DTLB Alliance CEO Austin Metoyer said.
Both McCall and Le Bras said they already have tweaks in mind for the next one. McCall wants to set up an auxiliary bar to help guests get drinks faster. Le Bras said the next event should feature pop-ups from local retail businesses.
McCall said the city needs similar events “as often as possible.” Le Bras would be happy with once a month, she said.
“If downtown can host more of these events … it’s going to revitalize downtown, bringing people in from Belmont Shore, from Orange County, from LA County, from North Long Beach,” McCall said. “We’re going to see the demographic of people that used to spend time in Downtown coming back into the downtown corridor to spend their money.”
But for others, that ray of hope is too little too late.
Two doors down from The Ordinarie, Ubuntu Cafe sat empty – closed for the day, behind boarded-up glass barriers that had previously been smashed on its patio.
Just over a year after opening, the downtown spot is closing.
In a social media post, the restaurant’s co-owner, Danielle Soldati, said that the decision came after the business was broken into seven times during that short span.
“I know these issues aren’t unique to Downtown — but there, we felt them deeply,” she wrote.