Arts & Life

Long Beach welcomes new pizzeria

Fat Tomato Pizza, a restaurant catered to selling pizza and other food items, will have its grand opening on Wednesday, according to co-owner Brian Kim.

Located at 2130 E. Broadway, the new spot is taking over Paoli’s Pizza and Piano Bar, and will celebrate with free pizza for local residents.

Kim said Fat Tomato Pizza is unique to many other pizzerias part of the Long Beach locale, such as chain crowd-pleasures Papa John’s or Dominos.

“Our product is gourmet rather than fast food,” Kim said. “Our goal is to deliver quality and fresh food while caring about the customers’ healthy lifestyle. I also want to make our customers feel like they’re very welcomed.”

He added that the food products are made fresh daily from “organic, local produce,” such as the pizza dough and sauces. The restaurant delivers food to those within a certain range of their new location in the East Village Art District.

With exception to the name, Fat Tomato Pizza hopes to offer Long Beach a cut above the average slice by offering customers health-driven options such as gluten-free pizza and vegan cheese.

While this new pizzeria on the block is cleaning up the grease-stained game of delivery, Fat Tomato Pizza isn’t the only place offering those products within city limits.

Zpizza also offers gluten-free and vegan cheese options, while other pizza restaurants, such as Dominos and Pizza Hut, offer gluten-free pizza, but lack vegan cheese. Although Fat Tomato Pizza has some competition to deal with, the restaurant has other food items to sway customers from its rivals, Kim said.

Some of the other food items that the flier advertises include Buffalo wings, spaghetti, sandwiches, salads and desserts.

Kim said that the restaurants are family owned, and the Long Beach location was added in order to continue expanding the business. Others are located in San Pedro, Hermosa Beach and Hollywood, according to the restaurant’s website.

The Fat Tomato Pizza in Long Beach is about 15 minutes and 3.2 miles away from CSULB’s campus, and already has some potential customers like junior Adriana Fonseca, a human development major at CSULB, looking forward to their grand opening.

“I think it’s a good thing [that the restaurant is opening] because not all pizza places have vegan options,” Fonseca said. “Also, gluten free pizza isn’t really available.”

CSULB graduate student Sophia Graham said she is a “huge fan of pizza” and wants to try the vegan cheese, but she cautions other people about its lurking deception.

“People might think all vegan food is healthy and that it satisfies all nutrient requirements,” Graham said. “But that isn’t always the case.”

Some examples of what may be tasty vegan treats to some, but are lacking in nutrition would be Oreo cookies or a roll of Fruit By the Foot. Graham added that people should supplement their diet with other foods and to not expect the vegan option to satisfy all nutrient requirements of a balanced diet.

Vin Shan, a CSULB graduate student, said he wants to try the pizza place as well since it’s not that far from campus.

“People are moving more towards healthier foods, so it’s good that [Fat Tomato Pizza] is [making the restaurant more health oriented],” Shan said.

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