Long Beach Food Scene Week kicks off July 31 and runs through Aug. 9, celebrating our city’s ever-evolving food culture. To uplift our chefs, restaurateurs, managers, bartenders, line cooks, servers, bussers, and everyone else who makes Long Beach hospitality what it is, I will be highlighting specific things happening exclusively this week—like this focus on Proudly Serving.
There is something wonderfully accidental about some of the best parts of Proudly Serving, the mini-burger again founded by Matthew McIvor after he began cooking burgers out of his driveway mid-pandemic.
Its fries—the thick, craggy, battered things that have become nearly as essential to an order as the burger itself—weren’t even the fries owner Matthew McIvor originally intended to serve. Its chili, a deeply spiced, beanless ode to SoCal’s love of Tommy’s-style chili burger culture, was created by a guy who had never actually eaten a chili burger before making his own. They’ve expanded into fish sandwiches, including a stellar tuna melt for Long Beach Food Scene Week. Chicken sandwiches. Collabs……