The Brief

Heading into his first semester this fall at Feather River College, Conor Robinson considered camping in a tent after struggling to find a 1-bedroom apartment he could afford.

Larissa Griffith found free housing her first semester, but it came with a catch: She was on call, 24 hours a day, including holidays, at her landlord’s farm.

In the town of Quincy, population 1,580, housing options are sparse for students in this rural community in Northern California. Demand has also grown, especially after the 2021 Dixie Fire, which tore through nearly a million acres of Sierra Nevada mountains and forest — about the size of Rhode Island — and destroyed hundreds of homes across the surrounding Plumas County.

Right after the fire, the state granted the college over $500,000 from the state to design solutions for the worsening student housing crisis, but it was a kind of “false hope,” said Carlie McCarthy, the college’s vice president of student services.

Twice, the school submitted its plans — a $74 million proposal to build over 120 beds for students — and each time, the state Legislature was unable to fund it. The state has promised to help community colleges build housing for their students, but after committing funds to 19 other community college housing projects, the state Legislature tried to delay spending the money in order to close a multi-billion dollar budget deficit. Most of those projects are still moving forward through a new financing mechanism, but the Legislature has effectively run out of money for any other projects.

Feather River College is one of 35 housing proposals that remain in limbo, with no additional state funding available. Those projects include a proposal from Mendocino College, where massive wildfires destroyed hundreds of homes in a community similar to Quincy and Santa Monica College, which submitted its proposal before the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles.

Santa Monica College is still gathering data about the scope of the fires’ impact on students, but early estimates based on students’ addresses show that around 600 Santa Monica College students were living in an evacuation zone or within areas directly impacted by those fires, said Susan Fila, who oversees students’ health and wellbeing at the college.

The aftermath of the Palisades Fire on Jan. 15, 2024.

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Ted Soqui

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CalMatters

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College presidents across the state say the new housing projects are a long-term solution to wildfire recovery and to the state’s enduring affordability crisis, which has hit community college students hard. In study after study, researchers have found that around 20% of California community college students experience homelessness at some point over the course of a year, and many more struggle to pay rent.

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, which oversees the state’s 116 community colleges, is asking for $1.1 billion in bond money from the state Legislature this year for affordable housing projects, though those dollars would fund just half of the outstanding proposals. The governor has until July 1 to finalize the 2025-26 budget.

Other competing budget priorities, such as LA wildfires recovery, could take precedence over affordable housing, said Wrenna Finche, the vice president of administrative services at Ohlone College in Fremont, which has failed to secure state funding for two different affordable housing proposals for its Bay Area campuses. “I wouldn’t expect a lot of movement on it this year.”

Fighting for student housing

A few of California’s rural community colleges have offered housing for decades, mostly as a means to mitigate long commutes to school. In Plumas County, some students drive over an hour — on a good day — just to make it to Feather River College. Snowstorms and rock slides frequently close mountain roads, delaying travel even more.

Many community colleges were designed for students who live with their parents and commute to school, but those demographics are changing. Fewer students between the ages of 18 and 22 are enrolling in community college, and those who do enroll often live independently. As a result, demand for housing has grown all across the state, including in coastal areas and in other rural regions, such as the Imperial Valley.

Conor Robinson, a student at Feather River College, talks about the challenges he faced finding a place to live while attending the school in Quincy, on Feb. 12, 2025.

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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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Robinson is 36 and enrolled at Feather River College after making a career change. He’s studying ecosystem restoration and applied fire management, the only such program in the state, and wants to continue working on prescribed burns after graduation.

Griffith, 20, is a former foster youth. She moved from the Sacramento area to Quincy in order to follow her dream of running a dude ranch. Feather River College is the only school in the state to offer a bachelor’s degree program in equine and ranch management.

The campus includes horse stables, a fish hatchery and other nods to the Plumas County economy, which relies heavily on logging and outdoor recreation. To meet the needs of students like Robinson and Griffith, the college has multiple dormitories with a total capacity of about 260 students. Unlike the rest of campus, where buildings are carefully designed to blend with the surrounding forest, most of the dorms are purely utilitarian. The buildings are bare, white rectangles, except for a few hints of student life. Cowboy boots and spurs sit outside many doorways; a dirt trail connects the dormitories to class.

Rent is around $500 a month, including utilities. Signups for the upcoming fall semester opened on Feb. 3, but two days later, registration was already full, said Kevin Trutna, the college president. By putting three beds in a single room, the college can house over 300 people, but even then, there’s a waitlist. This semester, he said over 80 students failed to get a campus housing spot.

“As a former foster youth, it’s sink or swim,” said Griffith, who received one of the coveted housing spots in a bedroom she shares with an equine studies major. “Anything I get, I had to fight for.”

By combining four different state and federal grants, plus a private scholarship, she receives more than $20,000 this year in financial aid, which is more than enough to cover the monthly rent. The housing is a significant upgrade, she said, especially compared to her foster home and the previous “free” housing arrangement.

An aerial view from a drone of two dorm buildings tucked between trees on campus at Feather River College in Quincy on Feb. 12, 2025.

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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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Robinson wasn’t interested in living in a shared dormitory, which is the only campus housing available, so he found a mobile home off-campus this semester.

“I didn’t feel like I had a choice but to accept the one place that I had found, even though it wasn’t ideal,” he said.

After moving in, he spent hours shampooing the carpets and cleaning up his unit to make it livable, but he said he’s still worried it may be unsafe because of lingering mold and lack of ventilation for the stove. He pays $850 a month, but the landlord wants to move in at the end of April, so he’ll need to find a new place soon.

Finding housing alternatives through RV parks and bond dollars

After Trutna realized the state was unlikely to fund the Feather River College’s next housing development, he called Dayne Lewis, the owner of a local RV park that abuts the campus, to see if the park had additional capacity. Out of the park’s 31 RVs, Lewis said roughly half are students.

“I would fill this place completely with students but the timing doesn’t always work out,” he said. Since the Dixie and North Complex fires tore through Plumas County, many state and federal contractors have moved to Quincy, the largest city in the county, to work on rebuilding the region. Those contractors now compete with students for temporary housing, he said.

River Ranch RV Park resident Emma Hernandez is a student at Feather River College. The school’s campus is a short walk from the RV park in Quincy. Feb. 12, 2025.

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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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Antelope Valley College in Lancaster purchased a $9 million plot of land for its proposed housing project, but it now sits empty since state funding fell through, said Jennifer Zellet, the college president. Like administrators at Ohlone College and Santa Monica College, Zellet said she’s exploring a “public-private partnership,” in which a local nonprofit builds and operates a housing development on that land using a portion of regional bond dollars.

These partnerships are a popular but imperfect solution. In Long Beach, where the community college proposed building over 240 units, President Mike Muñoz said he won’t resort to a public-private partnership. Because housing would be run by a private entity, not a college, he said it’s common for these kinds of projects to charge students higher rent. Instead, he said the college plans to rely entirely on local bond dollars, even if that means delays on other campus projects that need bond money, such as a new training center for police officers and firefighters.

Rural parts of the state, such as Plumas and Mendocino counties, have fewer alternatives. The projects are often smaller since there are fewer residents, and as a result, the profit margins are thin, said Mendocino College President Timothy Karas. Both Trutna, the president of Feather River College, and Karas say that they have no bond dollars available.

You might have braved the process to get a seat at SoFi Stadium for one of the eight FIFA World Cup 2026 matches in L.A., or maybe you’re gearing up to head to a community watch party.

Either way, you can maximize the celebration, avoid traffic and save your wallet by taking transit.

LAist prepared the following guide to help folks get to and from the stadium, L.A. city watch parties and tips on using bikes and scooters to get around the region.

Getting to the stadium

L.A. Metro is the countywide transportation agency and is the official public transit provider for the World Cup matches in the city. It’s partnering with more than 10 regional transportation and charter providers to get people to and from the stadium.

Where is the stadium: All eight of the matches will be at SoFi Stadium, or L.A. Stadium, as it will be called during the World Cup. The address is 1001 S. Stadium Dr., Inglewood, CA 90301.

How do you get there on Metro: Metro is offering direct shuttle service to the stadium from several locations in L.A. and Orange counties:

• Hawthorne/Lennox Station
• Crenshaw Station
• LAX/Metro Transit Center
• Near LAX hotels
• El Camino College
• Harbor Gateway Transit Center
• Culver City Transit Center
• Torrance Transit Center
• Union Station
• Downtown Long Beach
• Downtown Santa Monica
• North Hollywood Station
• Pierce College Station
• ARTIC Anaheim Station 
• Newport Transportation Center

You can catch a stadium-bound shuttle at locations throughout L.A. and Orange Counties.

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L.A. Metro

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When: Shuttles to the stadium begin service at least three hours before kick-off depending on which location you’re leaving from, and they’ll run up to 90 minutes after the matches end.

How often: The shuttles will generally run every 10 minutes. For the Pierce College Station and Newport Transportation Center, the shuttles will run every 30 minutes.

How to pay: You can tap the fare machines directly with your credit or debit card. Or you can go old-school and use a physical or digital TAP card. There are several ways to get a TAP card, including using your smartphone or picking one up at a Metro station. Here is a page with more details and instructions.

How much: The same as usual: $1.75 one-way.

Ok, but how do I get to the shuttle locations?: There are a few different options.

The shuttle pick-up and drop-off locations are well-serviced by existing transit. You can use the Transit or L.A. Metro mobile apps to help with trip planning.

And yes, you can drive, too. For most of the shuttle locations, you can reserve parking via SpotHero on Metro’s official World Cup page. You can also use ride-share or taxi services.

The only pick-up and drop-off location that doesn’t have any kind of vehicle access, including rideshare, is the LAX Metro Transit Center. But that station is accessible by five different Metro bus lines and two rail lines.

Bonus: If you’re looking for a souvenir to commemorate your time on transit during the World Cup in L.A., make sure to pick up a special TAP card. You can see the designs and where to find each one here.

How to get to the watch parties

There are going to be more than 100 free watch parties in the city of L.A. at different park locations. It’s part of an initiative called Kick it in the Park. You can find out more about the watch parties here.

Some of the locations are accessible on Metro rail.

• MacArthur Park. You can take the B or D line to the Westlake/MacArthur Park Station.
• Seoul International Park. The D line stops at the Wilshire/Normandie Station, which is about a half mile away from the park. 
• Sycamore Grove. The A line stops at the Southwest Museum Station, which is less than half a mile from Sycamore Grove. 
• Stoner Recreation Center. The E Line stops at the Expo/Bundy Station, which is about half a mile away from Stoner Recreation Center.
• Cheviot Hills Recreation Center. The E Line Palms Station is just less than a mile away. 

Check out the city’s interactive website to learn which Metro, L.A. Dash or other regional transit can take you to the Kick it in the Park events.

Other cities in the county are also hosting watch parties, including Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Culver City.

Micro-mobility solutions

Taking a bike share or scooter could be helpful to get to and from transit stations or to go a short distance that isn’t well-served by transit. There are a few different options here:

• Metro Bike Share. Metro operates a fleet of regular and electric bikes that you can find at docking stations throughout L.A. Use the L.A. Metro app to find docking stations near you that have available bikes or to find stations where you can return the bike when you’re done using it. There are different prices depending on how long you anticipate needing a bike, and you can pay with your TAP card. 
  

• Lime. The private scooter and bike-share company recently expanded into the Valley and now offers a total of 15,000 vehicles in the city of L.A. Its vehicles are also accessible in West Hollywood and Long Beach. You can use the Lime or Uber apps to book the vehicles.

  The company is launching a “fan pass” this summer that includes 90 minutes of riding over the course of five days for about $13. You can purchase the fan pass more than once. It’ll be available between June 5th through July 12th. If you don't have access to the internet on your phone but still want to use a Lime vehicle, you can text "Unlock" to 415-463-3473. You will receive a text back with instructions on how to proceed from there.

Group lunches, home-delivered meals and caregiver support programs are among the services that L.A.-area older adult organizations are warning could be cut under a proposed funding shift.

Nearly two dozen organizations, which make up the Los Angeles Coalition for Aging, say L.A. is facing "substantial" funding losses while resources are redistributed to smaller, more rural regions.

More than 2 million older adults — generally people aged 60 and older — live in L.A. County, a vast majority of whom are aged 65 and older, according to the state Department of Aging. According to the coalition, the population exceeds any other county in California, with L.A. older adults increasingly experiencing homelessness and struggling to meet their basic needs.

The proposed funding shift could lead to more than 400,000 fewer meals each year to the county’s older adults who rely on the programs — not including numbers from the city of L.A. That’s equivalent to roughly 1,500 fewer meals every day.

Catherine Schneider, with Jewish Family Service L.A., which is part of the coalition, told LAist the funding shift moves money away from the oldest, most vulnerable adults in major urban areas.

“Many of [our seniors] have to choose between, do I pay my rent? Do I pay my medical bills? Or do I pay for food? That's the current reality, that's our starting place,” Schneider said. “So when we make cuts to the meals that they are receiving, then you're going to see a further spike in homelessness.”

The lunch for the day was delivered on trays along with cups of water to each older adult.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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In the city of L.A., the number of people aged 65 and older experiencing homelessness jumped more than 17% in a year, and more than 36% in two years, according to annual point-in-time counts.

How would it work?

The proposal would update the intrastate funding formula, which supports local services and targets areas with the greatest needs, according to officials.

It’s been about 30 years since the formula was updated, all while the state’s older adult population has dramatically changed.

“So it was high time that we did this review and we ensure that the dollars are reaching the communities that need them most,” Nicole Shimosaka, chief deputy director with the state Department of Aging, said during a webinar Wednesday.

The proposed funding formula would collectively cut about $5.5 million from L.A. city and county. That’s a 23% drop — 11% for the county and 12% for the city.

Several counties with more rural populations, on the other hand, would see an increase:

• Nevada County would be an 89% increase, or about $775,000 more
• Amador County would see a 72% jump, or about $360,000 more
• Plumas County would get 37% more, or about $160,000
• Mariposa County would see a 34% increase, or $126,000 more

What do state officials say about the proposal?

Newsom’s office referred LAist’s request for comment to the state Department of Finance, which said there were “extensive” conversations with stakeholders ahead of the proposal.

It also noted that the proposal wouldn’t be fully implemented for a few more years, "allowing time … to adjust and prepare.”

Susan DeMarois, director of the California Department of Aging, said officials have been asked at the state and federal level to take a “fresh look” at the formula to make sure it reflects the needs of older adults.

“We know these conversations are important to local communities, which is why stakeholder engagement has remained central throughout this process,” DeMarois said in an email. “At the end of the day, our goal is to support a stronger aging network that can continue helping older Californians stay healthy, connected, and supported in their communities.”

Names to the numbers

Dozens of older adults filed into a senior center in L.A.’s Fairfax Village neighborhood on a weekday morning for a free hot meal, access to exercise equipment and to catch up with friends.

Mariana Jimenez, who lives in West Hollywood and comes to the center everyday to eat, snacked on slices of cantaloupe while staff passed out lunch trays.

“I want to come in for many years more,” she told LAist. “This is very healthy for me to come every day.”

Mariana Jimenez has been coming to the center every day for years. She said she enjoys the hot lunches and dancing activities on Fridays.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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Frank McRae, 82, takes two buses to get to the senior center almost every weekday for meals. McRae doesn’t have a stove or complete kitchen at home, which he said makes the “excellent quality” and “consistent” lunches more important.

Without the group meal program, McRae said the “galloping cost of food … would really be a hardship.” He knows by heart how much the cost of meat, cheese, soups and other staples have risen recently at almost every grocery store in the area.

“This center is keeping people alive, it's keeping people thriving,” he said. "It's giving people hope, it's giving them outlets.”

Frank McRae, 82, used to take three to four buses to get to the center several times a week. He enjoys the meals, gym access and doing research in the computer room.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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How could it affect L.A.?

The Los Angeles Coalition for Aging, which includes organizations like the Los Angeles LGBT Center and Meals on Wheels West, collectively serves thousands of older adults and caregivers in the county’s diverse communities.

The Little Tokyo Service Center, another member of the coalition, assists more than 5,000 people so older adults can live independently as long as possible.

Peter Gee, co-executive director, said there isn’t enough funding for older adult services to begin with, and the proposed shift would be cutting millions from an already limited pool.

“At the end of the day, it would be more older adults and their caregivers that would be going hungry,” he said. “A lot more people that would be facing isolation, a lot more people that would be experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity.”

Among the unhoused, older adults are estimated to be the fastest-growing population in California.

The Fairfax Village center has its own fully stocked kitchen, which has been led by the same chef for the last 34 years. Workers are preparing a mango salad for the next day's meal service.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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Jewish Family Service L.A.'s kitchen has served meals for decades, including when power went out after the 1994 Northridge earthquake and through the COVID pandemic.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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Jewish Family Service L.A. serves about a quarter million meals annually to more than 3,000 people, according to Schneider.

If the proposed funding shift moves forward, the meals, transportation, in-home care, senior centers and activities that Schneider said is “very much a lifeline for folks” would face significant cuts.

“There'd be some very painful decisions that we might have to make, and it would impact the lives of our neighbors,” she said.

What are advocates and older adults asking for?

Gee said the proposal was a surprise to the coalition. It’s urging the California Department of Aging to pause implementation until there’s been “meaningful engagement” with providers, advocates and affected communities.

In a nutshell, Gee and Schneider said they’re asking state leaders to slow down and consider the consequences.

He encouraged older adults to contact state leaders, including Newsom’s office, to speak up about the “simply unacceptable” proposed funding shift.

What does rebuilding after the 2025 L.A. fires mean to you? That's the question LAist asked you in February.

Fire survivors may feel the world has moved on, but we know that you are in the process of pouring foundations, moving to a new temporary home, settling into a new community and perhaps waiting for a chance to return to the areas that burned in Altadena, Pasadena, the Palisades and Malibu.

So we wanted to hear your stories — and also see photos that capture this moment of your lives. With the fires a year and a half behind us, here are a couple of your stories.

A new start in Altadena

For Missi Figueroa, rebuilding has meant being drawn back to Altadena.

“I felt this weird connection after the fire to this place, like it felt like a grave of my old life, and I just wanted to be here,” Figueroa said. “We looked and thought about moving elsewhere. We just wanted to come back here.”

Her husband, Frank Figueroa, felt that rebuilding is also a part of healing.

“I can’t wait to see everyone else here move back and how tight the community will be,” he said. “I think it will be much stronger.”

The Figueroa family were at the tail end of rebuilding their home in February, including an ADU, where their daughter was standing before it was finished.

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Missi Figueroa

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The children of Missi and Frank Figueroa enjoying raspados outside their newly built home. The local elotero still walks their neighborhood in Altadena.

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Missi Figueroa

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In February, the Figueroas were nearing completion of their new home. They shared a photo of one of their children smiling through the window of the then-unfinished ADU.

They passed the final inspection May 8 and got approval to move back to Altadena, which they have called home for over 10 years. Theirs was the 12th fully rebuilt home in Altadena, and they have since returned to the neighborhood.

The home was to their specifications, including adding lots of tiles and reusing bricks from their former home in the planter in the front.

Missi and Frank Figueroa embrace in front of their new home.

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David Rodriguez

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LAist

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Jose Hernandez, their contractor with Structural Prime Builder, was determined to get the Figueroa family moved in in six to seven months.

“I was blessed that they basically trust us to build their home,” said Hernandez, who runs the family-owned business.

The Figueroas said one thing people should know about rebuilding is the importance of having a contractor you can lean on. They found that in Hernandez.

“I think it’s really important to find someone you can work with, a contractor who you can trust and talk to,” Missi Figueroa said.

Frank and Missi Figueroa sit on a blue bench with their contractors, Danna and Jose Hernandez from Structural Prime Builder, outside their newly constructed home in Altadena.

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David Rodriguez

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LAist

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Share your story

LAist is still hearing stories and receiving photos from fire survivors on what rebuilding means to them. We want to hear from homeowners, current or former renters, business owners and more.

So far, we’ve heard from survivors living in temporary homes, living in RVs on their lots, creating art and starting to rebuild a new home while wondering what comes next.

Share your story in the survey below and we may include your pictures and stories in an upcoming feature. We won’t publish anything you share without your permission.

Framing a new home in the Palisades

Darrin Hurwitz stands in front of his family’s new home under construction in the Pacific Palisades.

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David Rodriguez

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LAist

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Darrin Hurwitz and his family moved to Pacific Palisades from Washington, D.C., in 2022. A big reason they chose their neighborhood was to have a city experience and be close to nature.

Their home was destroyed in the Palisades Fire.

The framing of their new home is almost complete. They are the first house on their street to start rebuilding.

For Hurwitz, rebuilding has felt like “a second job." There was the stress of many decisions — as well as feeling like part of something larger.

“Everyone is dealing with these issues in a different way,” he said. “But ultimately, we are excited to be part of the rebuilding process and thrilled to come back to the Palisades in about a year.”

Darrin Hurwitz and his family lost their home in the Palisades Fire. Their home is the first to be rebuilt from the ground up, and broke ground in early February.

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Darrin Hurwitz

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The Hurwitz home’s framing is almost completed by mid-May.

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Darrin Hurwitz

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Since he’s been in the neighborhood to see the start of construction, Hurwitz said he has found it invigorating to hike the trails. He shared a photo with LAist of the view from a hilltop, where he can watch his neighborhood being reborn.

The Hurwitz home is under construction in the Pacific Palisades.

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Darrin Hurwitz

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Hurwitz and his family are living in Santa Monica while their new home is built. He is optimistic about the progress he and his family have made.

“It takes time for people to figure out what to do, to figure out their financial situation, to decide whether to return to an area that has been ravaged by a natural disaster,” Hurwitz said. “I am optimistic where things are headed. The Palisades will be back in maybe three years or five years or seven years, but it will come back.”

The soft hiss of fat dripping onto white-hot binchotan. The alchemical smell of both sweet tare sauce and charred meat. If you closed your eyes, you could easily imagine yourself parked at the counter of any number of South Bay yakitori joints.

But this is Three Pigs, a Long Beach-based pop-up and catering operation, that roves around the region, one week perhaps at a street fair, another in the parking lot of a donut shop.

It’s the work of partners Allison and Vasili Tavernakis. In just under two years, they’ve built a community of dedicated diners from Orange County to Los Angeles, drawn to their personal market-inspired take on traditional Japanese cuisine.

Three Pigs owners, Vasili (left) and Allison Tavernakis.

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Courtesy Three Pigs

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Yakitori is what first launched Three Pigs, so. So there are always skewers on the menu, like a juicy beef kushiyaki skewer dabbed with wasabi.

But there’s also always something special and even ephemeral to be had. Maybe it will be hearty kakuni don, a bowl of rice topped with meltingly tender soy-braised pork belly, a jammy soft boiled egg, and daikon and bok choy sprouts. Or perhaps you’ll find a hyper-seasonal dish like nowhere else: yuzu-scented whipped tofu, charred broccolini, sake-cherry agrodolce, and sprouted watercress.

Three Pigs is restaurant-quality cooking unbound from the financial and creative trappings of a brick-and-mortar space.

“The challenge is what keeps me excited,” Vasili said. “I want our pop-ups to feel like if you changed our bamboo plates, you’d feel like you were at a restaurant.”

A restaurant-quality dish at Three Pigs.

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Courtesy Three Pigs

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Organic growth

Allison and Vasili are both hospitality veterans. The pair met while working at a restaurant in Torrance: Allison as a manager and social media director in the front of the house, Vasili as a chef in the back of the house. After their shifts, there were few options for late-night bites. Inevitably, Vasili said, they’d find themselves at Japanese izakayas, where they and their coworkers could build camaraderie over skewers and small plates.

It was during those post-work meals that Vasili became enamored with yakitori. But it wasn’t until the pandemic lockdowns that Vasili ever attempted to cook it himself. It was a slow process, learning the techniques and honing the recipes that called back to those late-night meals that he sorely missed. For Allison, who is Japanese-American, the dishes spoke to her own flavor memories and family traditions.

Eventually, they became confident enough to invite friends over for dinners to try out new dishes.

Still, the idea of a pop-up seemed far off. It wasn’t until a friend who owns a store in downtown Long Beach offered a pop-up opportunity that Three Pigs started serving the public. After that first smashing success, which saw their entire menu sell out, the operation has grown organically ever since, building on community connections and word of mouth to find new avenues to share their food.

Evolution and ambition

If you pay enough visits to Three Pigs’ pop-ups, you can watch the pair continually push boundaries.

“On a recent visit to Japan,” Vasili recounted, “we saw a vendor with a gorgeously long irori-style grill with fish standing on skewers. In Japan, irori is a multifunctional space in the home for both heating and cooking. I hadn’t seen a vendor do that before, so I thought I could try building one.”

So he did. Then he sourced ayu, small fish prized in Japan for their sweet, delicate flavor. The fish were skewered whole and arranged vertically around lengths of charcoal stacked in the center of the grill. The result was not just an approximation of that inspiration from Japan, but an homage to the craft and care of Japanese cooking. Even attempting such a cooking method is something no other pop-up, let alone a brick-and-mortar restaurant, is likely doing in Southern California.

Casual pop-ups are only part of the Three Pigs experience. Allison and Vasili also host a dinner series. And it’s at those dinners where Three Pigs’ creativity is truly at play.

At a Santa Monica nursery a few months ago, Three Pigs paired an ambitious tasting menu dinner with an ikebana class hosted by Tiger Blossom Studio. In between flower arranging lessons, Allison and Vasili served a farmers market-driven menu that saw dishes like a hamachi crudo in a pool of strawberry ponzu, spiny lobster in a caviar and white miso beurre monté, and a hojicha panna cotta with craggy, dehydrated black sesame cake.

“We try and create an experience, not just food on a plate,” Allison said. “We see this as an entire restaurant experience that happens to be outside in the community. We get to interact with customers in a more intimate way, ask questions, and have a conversation.”

But that conversation isn’t just one with customers old and new. It’s a dialogue between memory and place, Southern California and its seasons, and tradition and evolution.

No matter where you find Three Pigs, you can always guarantee there will be something new on the menu.