The Brief

Every regional idiosyncrasy has a story. Detroit’s signature square pizza was originally baked in drip pans repurposed from the auto industry. L.A.’s donuts come in pink boxes because Cambodian refugees who started the donut shops needed cheap materials. And so it goes with cashews on pizza, a salty, buttery, crunchy topping that has gained a cult following in the Inland Empire over the past half century.

The Inland Empire, while very much part of SoCal culture, prides itself on doing things differently from its neighbors. Sub sandwiches are called grinders, local restaurant chains like Baker’s and Farmer Boys are largely unknown elsewhere — and, yes, cashews reign supreme as locals’ favorite pizza topping.

The city of Redlands, located over 60 miles east of Los Angeles, is where cashew pizza originated in the 1960s, eventually spreading to neighboring cities like Riverside and Yucaipa.

Kirsten Morningstar, a professional recipe developer and Redlands resident, says, “It’s a point of pride for Redlands people to have our own cultural food, something we invented that’s all ours. It’s how you know someone’s from Redlands.”

Why cashews?

Similar to the invention of chocolate chip cookies, there is no “why”; the creation of cashew pizza was a fortuitous accident.

To understand cashew pizza, you first have to understand the Gay 90s, a former pizza joint near the railroad tracks on Colton Avenue in Redlands. And to understand the Gay 90s, you have to understand its owner, Dave Wilson, and his gregarious and whimsical personality.

Every town needs a local spot to bring people together; in 1960s Redlands, the Gay 90s was that place. Wilson and his wife, Lorna, bought the restaurant in 1967. Cutting his teeth as a cook in the Army, he renamed the restaurant Dirty Dave’s Infamous Gay 90s Pizza Parlor and revamped the menu but kept the 1890s saloon theme (the “gay ’90s” refers to the gaiety and societal progress of the 1890s).

Pizza was the “great leveler,” says Jerry Farmer, a longtime family friend of the Wilsons who wrote Dirty Dave’s Pizza Parlor: An Origin Story (Dirty & Me), about Wilson.

Dirty Dave's Gay 90s Pizza, Redlands, CA, circa 1970s

(

Courtesy of Jerry Farmer

)

Customers liked the Gay 90s for its cheap beer and tasty thin-crust pies, with recipes perfected by Wilson himself. People from all over came to eat, including college students and out-of-towners attending weekly summer concerts at the Redlands Bowl.

It was a beloved gathering place, and by all accounts, a dive: crowded and lively, the walls and ceilings lined with memorabilia. Roberta Gehring, a fifth-generation Redlands resident, recalls, “The train would come by and rattle the building, and [the staff] would say, ‘Hold onto your plates!’” The pizza was fresh and delicious, and locals loved the chaotic atmosphere.

(It would go on to make an indelible mark on American pop culture — brothers Les and Glen Charles, who attended the University of Redlands in the 1960s, drew upon the restaurant as inspiration for their TV show “Cheers.")

‘Larger than life’

At 6’4” and 200 pounds, Dave Wilson was a physically imposing figure who disarmed people with his impish charm and wicked sense of humor. He’d got the nickname Dirty Dave as a teenager, when he fought back against school bullies using hay hooks, leading other kids to say he was fighting dirty — though some assume the name came from his frequent use of foul language.

“He had this larger-than-life personality,” says Farmer. Wilson’s granddaughter, Stephanie Hemphill, adds, “He was a big papa bear.” 

Dave Wilson

(

Courtesy Jerry Farmer

)

Wilson had a penchant for stealing bites of everyone’s food. Friends, family, customers — no one’s plate was safe. “Quality control,” he called it. In the late ’60s, he turned this annoying habit into a business decision when, one fateful day, a customer’s pizza order forever transformed the Inland Empire pizza culture.

This customer was a regular of the Gay 90s, but nobody knew his name, including Wilson. One day, he arrived drunk, sat down at the bar, ordered a sausage, onion and pepperoni pizza, then asked for a packet of cashews from the concession rack behind the bar. Farmer writes in his book, “To Dave’s astonishment, the befuddled fellow ripped open the bag and dumped the nuts on his pizza. The look of pleasure in the drunk’s eyes must have triggered Dave’s bite-snatching habit. Dave reached across the bar, grabbed a piece of the poor guy’s pizza and crunched it down. Dave was utterly amazed. It was downright delicious.”

The Gay 90s special — pepperoni, sausage, onions and cashews, Dirty Daves, Olympia, WA.

(

Courtesy of Dirty Dave's Pizza Parlor

)

“Perhaps his body was just craving more salt,” Farmer muses. “Excessive alcohol consumption leads to dehydration.”

Wilson was stubborn and stern, and if you were close to him, he’d steal your ideas and claim them as his own. However this time, he gave credit where credit was due. He also had an astute sense of what people liked and strove to please his customers’ palates. He figured that, if he liked something, other people might like it too. He put the man’s spontaneous invention on the menu and called it the Gay 90s special, inspiring a culinary phenomenon that has stuck around for generations.

A new market

When the Wilsons’ house in Redlands burned down in the summer of 1971, they sold the Gay 90s and headed north to start anew. They landed in Washington state, where Lorna Wilson’s family lived, and opened the new Dirty Dave’s Pizza (eventually dropping the Gay 90s in the name, but not on the menu) in Olympia in March 1972. Dave Wilson passed away in 2013, but his children and grandchildren still own and run the restaurant, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022.

Wilson’s piano is still there, along with the 1890s theme and the eclectic mix of posters, old menus and photos on the walls. “So many places change with the times,” says Hemphill, who is the Washington restaurant’s marketing manager. “We want the menu and the vibe to stay the same. If you had a Gay 90s pizza in 1970 in Redlands and another one in 2023 in Washington, it will be the same, and that’s the key.”

Wilson’s legacy

The first cashew copycat appears to have been Don Frisbie, owner of Pizza Chalet, a now-defunct Inland Empire chain that had locations in Redlands and Riverside. Patti Johnson, who worked at a Pizza Chalet on Magnolia Avenue in Riverside in the early 1970s, clearly remembers her restaurant’s iteration of the Gay 90s Special, the #14 with pepperoni, cashews, sausage and onions.

Unlike with pineapples, a polarizing pizza topping, there doesn’t seem to be a large contingent of anti-cashew detractors. Rather, those who have tried it have quickly fallen in love and bonded with other cashew aficionados. However, there is some debate about which cashew combination is best (the Gay 90s special or a cashew Hawaiian) and which kind of cashews to use (salted, lightly salted, or unsalted). Everyone agrees that you should use roasted cashews and add them on top of the cheese in the final minutes of baking for a perfectly toasted crunch.

Morningstar, the recipe developer who now lives in Riverside, says cashews were a ubiquitous pizza topping in restaurants and at school pizza parties during her youth. Cashews, she says, are buttery and crunchy: “It’s exactly what pizza was missing.”

Dirty Daves, Olympia, WA.

Gehring’s son David Copher is also a huge cashew pizza fan — so much so that the Inland Empire resident brings cashews with him on extended winter ski trips to Colorado. At Pazzo’s Pizza in Colorado, Copher asks staff to add the cashews to the deep-dish Sicilian-style pizza toward the end of baking. This year at Christmas, Gehring got him a two-pound bag of lightly salted, whole cashews to ensure he was well-supplied.

Copher isn’t the only one to bring his own cashews to restaurants, either. Members of a Facebook group called “Cashews on Pizza” discuss their love for the topping and lament that they can’t find cashew pizza outside of the IE. People are seldom confused about its origins: Everyone knows it started at the Gay 90s, though they may not know how or by whom.

Gay 90's menu from 1972

(

Courtesy of Jerry Farmer

)

Washingtonians, at least those in the Olympia area, have gained a similar fondness for cashews. The area’s pizza places have followed Wilson’s lead and put the Gay 90s special on the menu. In areas not touched by Wilson’s influence, though, cashew pizza remains unheard of.

“It’s super cool that something as simple as cashews on pizza can bring a community together. It’s exactly what my grandpa would have wanted,” Hemphill says. “Dave wasn’t self-centered. He didn’t think of himself as an inventor of cashew pizza. He just wanted to feed people and make them happy.”

Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they use, according to a new report — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities.

The report, by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University, finds that planned data centers — the ganglia of artificial intelligence — are spreading to regions reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water, with potentially major effects in the Central and Imperial Valleys.

But, reinforcing previous studies, the researchers found that a patchwork of state, federal and local policies allows data center operators to avoid publicly disclosing their actual water use.

California lawmakers tried to address this last year, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure. Now, the legislature is trying again, with bills mandating disclosures about water use and planning.

“We have this huge build out, and we have very little data,” said Irina Raicu, who directs the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

Paired with California’s precarious water supplies, Raicu said, “It’s just not a good combination.”

Shaolei Ren, an expert on the environmental impacts of AI at UC Riverside who was not involved in the study, said the findings point to a much broader problem.

“Limited publicly available information about data center water use makes it difficult for communities, water providers and researchers to have meaningful public discussions and responsibly assess power-water trade-offs,” Ren said in an email.

Murky water use 

Few environmental impact reports for California’s data centers were publicly available online, the researchers found.

Raicu and co-author Iris Stewart-Frey, a professor of environmental science, went looking for the reports, meant to assess and disclose a project’s impacts for both nature and people under the landmark California Environmental Quality Act.

They found almost none. The ones they did find were largely for facilities in the city of Santa Clara.

Through interviews with planning officials, they discovered that projects can slip through with little environmental review if they fall under certain size or water use thresholds, or if they meet a city or county’s criteria for other approval pathways. These include something called ministerial approval, which requires planning agencies to approve a project that meets local zoning and other standards.

Even for data centers that undergo more stringent environmental scrutiny, the researchers found that documentation is rarely available to the public.

In the few cases the planning documents were posted publicly, the information — on the data center’s owner or operator, size, type of cooling system, the amount of water used, whether it’s recycled or potable — was often “missing, contradictory, or vague,” the report said.

The researchers said they contacted water providers in areas where data centers cluster, seeking usage data. None responded.

A shift to vulnerable regions

California’s data centers mostly cluster in the south San Francisco Bay Area and the city of Los Angeles, with smaller concentrations in Sacramento and San Diego.

But the report noted large, planned projects in rural and less affluent regions — like in Santa Clara County’s Gilroy, as well as in the heavily agricultural Imperial Valley.

“They need a bunch of cheap land,” Raicu. “If we’re not careful, they will end up being pitched, very convincingly, to communities that have real needs — without enough attention being paid to the water part.”

Khara Boender, director of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, which has opposed bills mandating more granular water-use reporting, said in an email the industry is “committed to being a good neighbor.”

Boender argues that data centers collectively “used significantly less water than other essential industries in 2025, including the agriculture, power, food and beverage, and semiconductor sectors,” but the coalition offers no data to back that up.

Collective use matters less than local impacts in a state where each community has its own mix of water supplies and strains, according to a previous study published by a team at UC Berkeley.

Whether data centers use a lot or a little water relative to agriculture or other industries, “what matters most is the scale of new local use compared to available local supply,” the Berkeley team concluded earlier this year. “Unfortunately, this picture is clouded by data deficiencies.”

In this week’s report, the Santa Clara University team drilled into those local supplies and community vulnerabilities to anticipated expansion.

“We’re at the brink of this happening in California,” Stewart-Frey, the environmental scientist, said. Her report, she added, isn’t advocating against data centers. But “communities should know what they’re getting themselves into.”

Debates over proposed data centers are erupting in a Kern County desert community with dwindling groundwater and in the hot Imperial Valley, which draws from the strained Colorado River. 

Monterey Park residents in the San Gabriel Valley successfully opposed one data center project over environmental concerns and inadequate information and secured an upcoming vote on a citywide ban.

In a letter to city officials, a representative for the developer dismissed opponents as “rage-baiting an uninformed mob to pressure your decisionmaking.”

Raicu pushed back. “If those communities are uninformed about the issue — whose fault is that? Who should be informing the people so that you don’t have this kind of pushback, if there is no need for it?”

New laws v. Big Tech

Last year, Assemblymember Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo, authored a bill requiring data center operators to report estimated or actual water use to their water supplier when seeking or renewing a business license or permit.

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure amid industry pressure, saying he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements about operational details on this sector without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”

Now, Papan is trying again with two bills. One largely reprises last year’s measure, with additional reporting required to the city and county. The other would bar local governments from approving new or expanded data centers unless the developer discloses information about their water use and plans.

It would also set other requirements — like prohibiting development in overdrafted groundwater basins in places like the San Joaquin Valley, unless state water managers OK it.

“You cannot manage what you have not and cannot measure,” Papan said. “The public likes transparency, and they should.”

Both bills cleared a key legislative chokepoint this week but face staunch opposition from the tech industry and business groups.

“If they run out of water, guess what happens? And they can’t cool their systems — are they going to succeed?” Papan said. “To which I say, help us help you.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

Founders Jenny Yang and Chris Capizzi spent seven years operating as a pop-up without a brick-and-mortar location. Opening their doors to local vendors pays homage to their own roots selling at Los Angeles markets, from the Melrose Trading Post to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market.

“Mega giant online sellers have the scale and the resources and the patience and the reach to capture most people,” Capizzi said. “Whereas for us, I think we have to be really creative — we have to band together.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

Yang and Capizzi’s long history of vending at markets taught them how isolating running a small business can be. At their market, they aim to build connections with each vendor and strategize the best timing and layout so everyone can succeed.

“[Amazon and Barnes & Noble] are Goliath, and we’re not even David — we’re just the ant underneath David’s foot,” Capizzi said. “I think we can do what we do and try to get as many people, at our level or even smaller, to get together.”

Weekly markets at A Good Used Book have captivated the neighborhood since its opening in October 2023, with charming names like “Sunday Funday,” “Saturday School” and “Hi-Fi Friday Night,” plus hand-drawn flyers by well-known artist Noah Harmon. Now, it’s become a weekly occurrence where LA pop-ups can display their own crafts, allowing local readers to indulge in a little more than a pocket paperback.

Each week holds a Pandora’s box of niche snacks, crafts or trinkets you didn’t know you needed, ranging from Southeast Asian-inspired trail mix to natural incense sticks to vintage Japanese audio equipment. One week you might be enticed to adopt a kitten from a rescue booth outside, another week you might impulsively get a stick-and-poke tattoo in the back of the store.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

On one sunny Sunday afternoon, Brandon Stanciell hand-tossed fresh pizza dough on the sidewalk outside the bookstore. His 2-year-old pop-up, Pizza Ananda, which he named after his daughter, is an homage to her and to Italian cooking, a hobby he started during paternity leave. An hour before the market closed, Stanciell had already sold out and garnished his last pepperoni-and-hot-honey pie for one lucky customer.

“I love that places like this allow us all to meet at once to share what we have and give it to the community around us,” Stanciell said.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

For the owners, building a community market is about deepening relationships with the people who walk through their doors. In an increasingly digital landscape, it is also a reciprocal partnership among local businesses.

“A lot of people talk about community building nowadays as a marketing strategy,” Capizzi said. “But I think the actual community building comes from talking to each vendor and each customer and being a consistent presence in the neighborhood.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

While customers browsed for unique titles, Gerin del Carmen worked her booth of ceramic dishware, oyster-shaped trinket holders and vases resembling miniature boxes. As a ceramicist, del Carmen draws from her Filipino heritage, including the Balikbayan boxes that represent immigrants sending gifts to family in the Philippines.

“Sharing the community and your space is such a big deal. This is not a huge, gigantic Barnes & Noble store,” del Carmen said. “It has so much foot traffic, and the fact that [the owners] are setting up and sharing the space once or twice a week with other vendors and other artists is huge.”

Yang and Capizzi may think of themselves as an “ant underneath David’s foot,” but A Good Used Book is building a colony of vendors, rooted in community.

Whether you and your friends are looking for a brunch spot to cater to everyone's palates, or taking a trip to the historic Grand Central Market, food halls make for an easy, affordable place to satisfy cravings — especially in SoCal, where diverse selections of dishes reign supreme.

But these spaces fill a void much deeper than our appetites. They bring new life to old storefronts, factories or even airfields (see list below), and can offer a way to keep dollars within the community by becoming a hub for local businesses.

With that said, here's a short list of food halls where you'll get more than just a killer meal.

For good vibes

BLVD MRKT food hall on the corner of 6th Street and Whittier Boulevard in downtown Montebello.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

BLVD MRKT is an open-air food hall in downtown Montebello that feels like a party. The 8,500-square-foot space currently has five eateries, or "concepts" as they're known in the restaurant industry, and hosts live DJs every Friday night and Sunday during brunch. They also host Open Vinyl Night on the second and forth Tuesday of every month, where patrons get $2 off beers and margaritas from Alchemy Craft if they bring a vinyl record to be played in the BLVD courtyard.

The space is pet-friendly and has growing concepts like Los Taquero Mucho, which offers classic al pastor, grilled chicken and slow-cooked carnitas tacos, as well as specialty flavors like vegan tacos with whiskil sautéed in coconut milk, and Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos, perfect for those who crave crispy, slow-roasted pork with a hint of sweetness.

Los Taquero Mucho participates in BLVD's incubator program, run by co-founders Barney and Evelyn Santos. The program offers mentorship to local entrepreneurs until they can set up shop permanently.

Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos with salsa from Los Taquero Mucho at BLVD MRKT in Montebello.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

BLVD MRKT is part of the couple's commercial real estate development firm, Gentefy. Its mission is to invest in retail and hospitality projects that ignite economic development and revitalization in Black and brown neighborhoods.

"Blvd Mrkt is our first project," Barney Santos wrote in a text message. "It was our social proof to prove to banks, investors and cities that a socially conscious business model could exist in a traditionally overlooked area."

VCHOS Pupuseria Moderna also has a spot in the BLVD courtyard, offering handmade pupusas with filling choices such as shrimp with spinach and cheese, and tender beef birria with a side of consommé, onions and cilantro. Coffee lovers can get an Oaxacan Mocha at Cafe Santo, or stop by Cold Pizza for a wood-fired slice.

For eclectic tastes

Rodeo 39 Public Market in Stanton.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

An O.C. favorite, Rodeo 39 Public Market lives on Highway 39, also known as Beach Boulevard, in Stanton. This 40,000-square-foot space is an eclectic mix of more than 20 food and drink concepts and retailers. There are three outdoor patios and five murals, plus an arcade, tattoo shop and photo booth. Food options cover everything from Lil' Breezy's adobo breakfast burritos to Cajun crab fries at The Crawfish Hut.

Mural by artist David Flores outside of Joystix arcade at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Rodeo's menu choices make it well-suited for a casual weekend brunch. At its entrance sits Here & There, where you can grab a coffee or matcha latte, or try one of their signature drinks like the Iced Vienna, a combination of milk with caramelly demerara sugar and your choice of matcha or espresso, topped with sweet cream and garnished with sea salt. The result is a drink that's smooth and not too sweet.

Eggyo bulgogi egg sandwich with spicy mayo at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Eggyo, a recent addition to Rodeo, offers Korean corn dogs and fluffy egg sandwiches on crispy, house-baked milk bread. Try the bulgogi option with spicy mayo for a savory kick. If you crave a cocktail, venture over to CAPO, which also serves craft beer. Or just sit on one of their sun-filled patios while you decide what to try.

For a page from history

The Hangar in Long Beach.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

The Hangar is a 17,000-square-foot food hall that pays homage to Long Beach's aviation history. It sits on former Boeing Co. land where military and commercial aircraft were built. Today, it serves as a dining destination at the Long Beach Exchange Shopping Center, or LBX, neighboring the city's international airport.

This space currently has a mix of 14 food concepts and two retail shops. Patrons can enjoy local favorites outside their flagship locations, like the Joe's Special bagel sandwich from Cassidy's Corner Cafe, with bacon, egg and the star of the show — tangy jalapeño cream cheese. Fans of spice can try Jay Bird's Nashville Hot Chicken, which offers chicken sandwiches and tenders, and Blazin' Fries, all with six levels of heat.

Historic aviation photos are displayed above food concepts at The Hangar food hall at LBX in Long Beach

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Inside, there are vintage pictures of aircraft that were built at the site, and a wall of clocks showing the time in cities named Long Beach across the country.

A Pan Am Hawaii travel poster (left) and a TWA Spain travel poster (right) at the patio of The Hangar food hall.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Outside, you'll find patio seating with umbrellas where you can sit and watch the occasional plane fly overhead. Or sit and enjoy the adjacent display of towering Pan Am and TWA posters promoting travel to Hawaii, Spain and Paris.

For fun and work

Mercado La Paloma on Grand Avenue in South L.A.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Open since 2001, the approximately 34,000-square-foot Mercado La Paloma sits in the Figueroa corridor of South L.A., and is known for its focus on community, art and culture. From rotating art exhibits to colorful tiled tabletops, this space feels like it was made to nurture creativity.

Interior of Mercado La Paloma.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

There are meeting rooms to rent starting at $25 an hour. It's a space where locals can bring their laptop to work or study, or have a long conversation with a friend, with bites from six acclaimed restaurants.

Holbox's Erizo dish at Mercado La Paloma.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

At the Mercado, visit Holbox for Michelin-starred seafood dishes like Erizo — velvety sea urchin laid atop a bed of tender scallop ceviche. The combination is fresh, flavorful and oceanic. Tip: If you can swing it, come on a weekday to avoid a long line, or order ahead.

For something sweet, walk over to Oaxacacalifornia Cafe & Juice Bar for a Spicy Pineapple Juice with a gingery kick, or go for the classic pairing of Hot Oaxacan Chocolate, made with your choice of water or milk, and light-as-air conchas crowned with a solid layer of vanilla or chocolate streusel.