Best of the Beach Food & Beverages 2024
Groceries and beverages
Grocery Store (Independent)
Grow
You can’t talk about Grow without talking about the Fisher family, because this thoughtfully operated farmers market of a grocery store is the definition of a family business. The Grow origin story is well known – young Brandon Fisher wanted a boogie board, his dad Barry was in the agricultural export business and supplied the most excellent cherries, and the success of the resultant fruit stand (with sister Megan as the chief cherry taster) became Grow, which kept growing until a second store was open in DTLA and the original shop on Sepulveda in Manhattan Beach became more than twice its original size. The store has grown in other ways, too, broadening its well-curated offerings, which now include ready-to-go meals that are often the talk of the town (the turkey burger has a cult following).
Barry and his wife Kathy Fisher still preside over their homegrown, healthy fiefdom, but daughter Megan has now graduated from college and returned to the family fold to help keep Grow growing.
Grow is still following the age-old advice of Grandma Fisher.
“My grandmother says she only shops the walls at a grocery store,” Fisher said. “And you think about an old grocery store. It was the produce department, it was the dairy, it was the meat, it was the fish. And I kind of love it that Grow is basically the walls of that grocery store…It’s all the healthiest things, the right items your family needs, and it’s all high quality products.”
GROW
1830 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
Manhattan Beach
(310) 545-2904
Hermosa Beach Mayor Justin Massey and Manhattan Beach Councilman Steve Napolitano (second and third from left) much down on Lazy Acre apples with members of the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation during a school fundraiser hosted by the market. Easy Reader file photo
Grocery Store (Chain)
Lazy Acres Natural Market
Lazy Acres believes in a natural approach to optimal health and wellness. From organic and seasonal produce and responsibly-raised meat, to functional supplements and body care, they are here to support you in mind, body and soul. Lazy Acres opened in Hermosa Beach in 2018 and quickly became a trusted resource within the community. They are dedicated to local communities and strive to provide a marketplace for anyone who loves to live healthy and eat well. Through the new Envirotokens program that launched in Summer 2023, they have donated nearly $7,000 to non-profits in our community like Grades of Green and the Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach Education Foundations.
Lazy Acres
2510 Pacific Coast Hwy.
Hermosa Beach
(424) 260-1400
Garrett and Brian Tribble, longtime employee Luis (aka the Ninja) and Jacob Walsh of Manhattan Meats, celebrating next door at Ercoles. Luis retired from the shop after 20 years and moved back to his home in Mexico. Photo courtesy Manhattan Meats
Meat Market (Independent)
Manhattan Meats
Like so many sons, Brian Tribble had no intention of following in his father’s
footsteps. He loved and respected his dad, Dean Tribble, and the business he had built, Manhattan Meats. He intended to chase a music career, and started working just as a regular employee for his dad just to help pay the bills. Lo and behold, eight years passed, and Trimble had learned the family trade, and discovered he loved it. So much, in fact, that a few years ago he and longtime employee Jacob Walsh – who’d started at Manhattan Meats as a high school student, and was trained in the butcher trade by Dean Tribble – took over the business. Brian Tribble is still a musician, but he’s discovered there is more than one way to be a rock star.
“Literally, if I go anywhere out in Manhattan Beach, I see somebody I know,” Tribble said. “I go to parties over in Torrance or Redondo Beach, and people hear the name Manhattan Meats, and they’re like, ‘Oh, I know that place.’ Because everybody likes to go get good steaks and have a barbeque.’”
Manhattan Meats has famously loyal customers, and it’s not hard to understand why: the shop is known for the unwaveringly high quality of its product. Fresh meat is delivered four times a week, fresh fish six times a week. The crew makes sausage in-house, using unusually good cuts of meat, and is famous for its deftness with seasoning. “The motto here,” Walsh says, “is we go above and beyond.” Walsh’s other mantra is, “It’s all about the customers.” Tribble echoes this sentiment.
“Honestly, I know it’s gonna sound cliche, but the customers are the business,” he said. “So customer service and the quality of the product are really our main focal points, and the community. I know probably
75% of my customers on a first name basis. If you do a good business, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We just keep taking care of our customers and they keep coming back and taking care of us.”
Manhattan Meats
1111 Manhattan Ave.
Manhattan Beach
(310) 372-5406
Uncorked sidewalk patio becomes a wine lovers gathering place each evening. Easy Reader file photo
Wine Store
Uncorked The Wine Store
Uncorked
What makes community? This is a bigger question than a Best of the Beach award commentary can properly cover, but in the spirit of “show, don’t tell” journalism, the Uncorked wine shops in downtown Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach could serve as a mighty fine Exhibit A. At both locations, neighbors tend to drift on in, on foot, ostensibly in search of a bottle of wine or a beer or some snacks. But what they find is more than the sum of these parts: a friendly face at the counter who often not only knows them by name, but knows what they like; an incredible selection of wines and beers; often, the happy buzz of people talking, comparing notes, sitting at tables outside the shop for one of Uncorked’s tasting events, a guitar player adding to the impeccable vibe of the moment. What they find, in other words, is community. This is what Uncorked has cultivated over the course of two decades as part of the larger community at the beach.
“That is the key thing, the community,” said Jeff Bonafede, the co-founder and owner of Uncorked, along with Kathy Knoll. “There are people who can’t do without us. We are kind of their gathering spot. And, you know, we keep a really good vibe about it, and so the community just really has really just loved us. There are people who say, ‘I don’t know what I do without you guys,’ which is probably the greatest compliment we could ever get, and that I would ever want.”
Uncorked The Wine Shop
302 Pier Ave.
Hermosa Beach
(424) 247-7117
1000 Manhattan Ave,
Manhattan Beach
310-372-2021
Yasman Aljamal, owner of Adam’s Liquor and Bottle Shop. Photo by Chelsea Schreiber
Spirits Store
Adam’s Liquor and Bottle Shop
“We are not your typical liquor store,” says Yazman Aljamal when asked about what sets Adam’s Liquor and Bottle Shop apart from its competitors. It’s not so much a boast as it is a fact: Adam’s is unlike any other store in the South Bay, and particularly the big box stores that have come to dominate the spirits industry. Adam’s is family owned and highly curated, featuring some of the highest-end single malts, bourbons, gins, tequilas, and whiskeys in the world while also carrying all the usual suspects. “We carry a wide range of all varieties, things that you see at your local grocery stores, and others that are more specialty, more rare, hard to find, and higher quality,” Aljamal said. The store likewise runs the full gamut of wines and craft beers. Adam’s even has its own app, and makes deliveries within 30 minutes of receiving an order anywhere within 9 miles – basically, anywhere in the South Bay. The original store, on PCH in Redondo, has been so popular among locals that a second location opened this year only a few miles away, on Torrance Boulevard.
Adams Liquor
1306 ½ S. Pacific Coast Hwy.
Redondo Beach
(310) 316-3740