Long Beach

Long Beach's independent record store, five thousand square feet of new and used vinyl, CDs, cassettes and a wall of 8-tracks nobody is pretending to need. It moved up to Bixby Knolls on Atlantic Avenue and kept the in-store performances, so there is a decent chance a band is playing on the floor for free when you walk in. Staff will talk to you for as long as you want about the record in your hand.

Sun to Wed, 11am to 7pm. Thu to Sat, 11am to 9pm

A Hungarian barber named Joe Jost opened a shop on Anaheim Street in 1924 and started serving beer on the side, and the family has run it on the same block ever since. Beer comes in a heavy glass schooner, and what people order with it is a pickled egg and a Joe's Special, which is a Polish sausage split and stacked on rye with Swiss and pickle. There are pool tables at the back and peanut shells on the floor. Cash and card both work now but the prices still read like an argument against inflation.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 10pm. Sun, 10am to 9pm

A 2nd Street bar that has been pouring since 1979 and claims a hand in inventing the American sports bar, with the old Rams and Raiders memorabilia still nailed up to prove it. Screens cover the walls and the booths face them. The kitchen does a tri-tip sandwich. It runs to two in the morning Thursday through Saturday and opens at nine on weekends for the early games.

Mon to Wed, 11am to 10:30pm. Thu and Fri, 11am to 2am. Sat, 9am to 2am. Sun, 9am to 10:30pm

Opened on 4th Street in 2008 and more or less anchored Retro Row's turn from antique shops into a street people eat on. The kitchen does mole in several colors and a tableside guacamole, and the bar is known for a long tequila list. It is next door to the Art Theatre, so half the early tables are people with a ticket. Weekend service starts at ten for brunch.

Mon to Fri, 11:30am to 9pm. Sat and Sun, 10am to 9pm

The shop that made Retro Row, open on 4th Street since 1986 and still run by the same people. Stock runs from the 1920s to about 2000, a lot of it dead stock that was never worn, and costume departments raid it when they need a period fit. Racks are dense and organized by decade. Looking costs nothing and nobody follows you around.

Mon to Fri, noon to 6:30pm. Sat, 11am to 6:30pm. Sun, noon to 6pm

The only museum in the country given over to modern and contemporary Latin American and Latino art, opened on Alamitos Avenue in 1996 in a building that was a 1920s silent film studio and later a roller rink. Shows run to painting and sculpture alongside photography and video. There is a sculpture garden out the back that you can sit in. Admission is fifteen dollars and free to everyone on Sunday.

Wed to Sun, 11am to 6pm. Closed Mon and Tue

Three small islands in Alamitos Bay laid out in 1903 with Venetian canals, arched footbridges and streets named Toledo and Ravenna. A public walkway runs the whole way round the Rivo Alto Canal, about a mile, flat the entire distance, with boats tied up on one side and back gardens on the other. The city rebuilt the seawall and reopened this stretch in 2015. The fountain at Naples Plaza is where people arrange to meet.

Public walkway, open at all hours. Free. Use it in daylight, because it is unlit in places

A barbecue house at the Naples end of 2nd Street that has been smoking baby backs since 1992, in a dim wood-panelled space with booths and a long bar. The order is a half rack with the sweet sauce, or the beef dip if you want something you can hold. Takeout starts at ten in the morning even though the dining side does not open until noon on weekends. It is the closest thing to a sit-down meal within walking distance of Gaslamp.

Mon to Thu, 4pm to 9pm. Fri, 4pm to 10pm. Sat, noon to 10pm. Sun, noon to 9pm. Takeout from 10am daily

Five siblings have run this on Cherry Avenue since 1985, in the part of Long Beach that holds the largest Cambodian population outside Cambodia. The order is kuy teav, the rice noodle soup, built on a pork bone broth with the house sauce on the side. It opens at seven in the morning and shuts at three in the afternoon, because breakfast soup is the point. Closed Mondays.

Tue to Sun, 7am to 3pm. Closed Mon

A German pub on Atlantic Avenue in Bixby Knolls, open since 2016, with more than thirty German and Belgian taps and a covered patio out the back that does most of the seating. Food is schnitzel and sausage with spaetzle, in portions sized for the beer. It fills with neighborhood regulars rather than with anyone who drove across the county for it.

Mon to Thu, 4pm to 10:30pm. Fri and Sat, 11:30am to 11pm. Sun, 11:30am to 10pm

A 1950s corner bar at Broadway and Redondo with pin-up art on the walls, a pool table and a jukebox. It opens at six in the morning, which tells you who the regulars are, and it is still pouring at two. The taqueria attached to it, Cocorenos, sends food through to the bar so you can eat without leaving your stool.

Daily, 6am to 2am

The newest of the three Rose Park Roasters cafes, on Ocean Boulevard a couple of blocks from the convention center. They roast their own, mostly light and single origin, and the 6am open makes it the earliest coffee downtown. Seating is indoors with a few tables on the sidewalk. The original shop is still going on 4th Street in Rose Park, which is where the name comes from.

Daily, 6am to 5pm

A free public park on the spit between Rainbow Harbor and the main channel, with lawn, sand and the Lions Lighthouse at the end of it. The lighthouse went up in 2000 as a Lions Club project for sight charities and is not a working navigation light. From the point you can see the Queen Mary across the water and the whole downtown skyline behind you. It is flat, paved and takes about twenty minutes to walk end to end.

Park, daily 8am to 6pm. The lighthouse path, sunrise to sunset. Free

Sophy Khut has been cooking on this stretch of Pacific Coast Highway for more than twenty years, and the menu runs long enough that regulars order by pointing. What she is known for is the beef jerky, flank steak oven dried and then fried, which arrives in thick pieces with a dipping sauce. The place also serves Thai, which is how a lot of Cambodian kitchens in Long Beach survived. There is a stage and a dance floor used on weekends.

Daily, 10am to 9pm

A metal bar on West 4th that serves New York style pies and slices until last call. The stereo is loud and the playlist is the kind of thing the staff actually own on vinyl, and there is a pinball and arcade corner off to one side. It is 21 and over all day, so the noon open is for adults killing an afternoon rather than for families. Slices keep coming after the kitchen shuts, which is the part that matters when a bill runs long.

Sun to Thu, noon to 11pm. Fri and Sat, noon to midnight. Kitchen closes an hour before the bar, slices until last call

A dark bar on the ground floor of the BroadLind Hotel on Linden, a block and a half off Broadway. The list is long on American whiskey and the house drink is an Old Fashioned made without ceremony. Seating is benches and a few tables, and the volume stays low enough to talk. It opens at five and runs to two every night of the week, which is rare in downtown Long Beach.

Daily, 5pm to 2am

A Broadway coffeehouse lined floor to ceiling with second-hand books, mismatched armchairs and people who have clearly been in the same seat for three hours. It runs from six in the morning to eleven at night every day, which is a longer day than any cafe in Long Beach keeps. There is beer and wine as well as coffee, plus sandwiches and cake. Nobody will move you along.

Daily, 6am to 11pm