The Brief

Every January, the open-air downtown food fair reopens after its winter break and announces new additions to its carefully selected group of regular vendors.

This year’s new vendor class demonstrates the resilience of L.A.'s independent food scene, ranging from a Grammy-nominated producer's Persian-influenced pizza to Southern fried fish celebrating Black American culinary traditions, to an LAist 2025 Tournament of Cheeseburger heavyweight contender.

The reopening also marks the start of Smorgasburg LA's 10th anniversary year, and will feature 41 returning vendors, who've helped build the regular event into a fun, family-friendly opportunity to try new, often cutting-edge food you may not be familiar with.

Doors open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at DTLA’s The Row, with free entry and free parking for the first two hours.

A new year

General manager Zach Brooks said this is his favorite time of year. "We add the new vendors at the beginning of the new year, everyone's excited."

Vendors apply through Smorgasburg's website, and the team meets with every applicant to taste their food before acceptance. Brooks said it's not a vetting process like "Shark Tank" but rather a matter of seeing if it's a good fit. Competition remains fierce, with many more applicants than available spots.

"I think it's just a testament to L.A. and the resilience of people who love this business and have a passion for it, and are going to continue to persevere and start their businesses and want to be out there selling food," Brooks said.

Here are a few highlights:

Viral orange chicken sandwich 

Long Beach-based Terrible Burger becomes Smorgasburg's new permanent burger vendor after standout appearances at LAist's Tournament of Cheeseburgers and the market's rotating Smorgasburger Stand. The smashburger pop-up, run by husband-and-wife team Nicole and Ryan Ramirez, specializes in burgers that draw from pop culture and global influences. They've made waves with a Korean barbecue burger topped with bulgogi barbecue sauce and a viral orange chicken sandwich, previously available only at their Tuesday night residency at Long Beach's Midnight Oil, making its L.A. debut Sunday.

Terrible Burger's viral orange chicken sandwich makes its LA debut at Smorgasburg after being available only in Long Beach.

(

Courtesy Terrible Burger

)

"We have been big Smorgasburg fans for a really long time before we even started Terrible Burger. We would go to Smorgasburg on dates, just eat and hang out. And it was just always a little dream of, "oh, what if we ever sold food here?" Nicole Ramirez said.

Crispy fried snapper and thick-cut fries 

Orange County-based Hot Grease, run by Asha Starks, is among four vendors graduating from residencies to permanent status. The Southern fried fish pop-up celebrates Black American history through food that honors Starks' family heritage.

"Folks often forget that there are Black folks in Orange County. My family came to Orange County during the second wave of the Great Migration, and they settled in Santa Ana... my food is very cultural. And the story, I feel like, is just as important to highlight," Starks said.

Hot Grease's crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and "Ill Dill" tartar sauce.

(

Courtesy Hot Grease

)

Hot Grease serves crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and small-batch sauces like "Ill Dill" tartar. Honoring the fish fry's history as a site of mutual aid, Starks directs 3% of sales to the Potlikker Line, Hot Grease's reproductive justice mutual aid fund. For January, she's added fish and grits, black-eyed peas and collard greens.

Pizza with a Persian twist

Mamani Pizza brings studio-born energy to Smorgasburg LA with pies featuring Persian-inspired creativity.

(

Courtesy Mamani Pizza

)

Mamani Pizza, from the Grammy-nominated producer Farsi, part of the music production team Wallis Lane, started making Neapolitan-style pizzas at his West L.A. recording studio a year ago. What began as late-night pies for friends and artists became an underground hit. Most pizzas are traditional, but Farsi adds Persian touches like The Mamani, topped with ground wagyu koobideh, roasted Anaheim chilis, Persian herbs and pomegranate molasses.

Other new vendors

Banana Mama - Asian-inspired pudding
Barranco's Yogurt - Oaxacan fruit yogurt
Franzl's Franks - Austrian sausages
Melnificent Wingz - Gourmet chicken wings
Piruchi - Peruvian street food
RuRu's Golden Tea - Karak chai
Stick Talk - vegan corn dogs
SouuLA - Taiwanese breakfast concept
Unreal Poke - Hawaiian poke
Zindrew Dumpling Shop - Spicy wontons

Four million acres of California’s wildest backcountry could soon be opened to paving roads and logging.

The Trump administration announced last week that it’s pushing forward with a proposal to scrap a 2001 rule that blocks logging, road building and other construction in parts of national forests. The administration argues repealing the so-called “roadless rule” is key to managing vegetation to better prevent wildfires on public lands.

Environmental advocates and other groups worry rescinding the rule would harm pristine habitat and the wildlife it supports, and open up more public land to industrial activities and human access that can cause more wildfires.

And locals are worried about losing access to some of the last protected natural lands in the region.

“What we're dealing with here in the roadless rule is the protection of the backcountry,” said David Browning, president of the Orange County Mountain Bike Association, “where you can actually go out and be having an experience where you don't hear traffic, where you don't see buildings, where you actually remember what it was like before all of us got here.”

In Southern California, large swaths of the Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland national forests would lose protections.

Browning, who spoke with All Things Considered host Julia Paskin on Monday, said he’s particularly concerned about the Santa Ana Mountains, where much of Orange County’s backcountry biking trails exist within a roadless area that could be opened to construction.

“Our mission is to protect and expand trail access, and so our entire agenda is to make sure that in a highly populated county, like Orange, that we have available the outdoors to be able to go and enjoy,” he said.

Browning takes issue with the wildfire argument — he pointed to the 2024 Airport Fire, which was sparked when heavy equipment operated by Orange County employees struck a rock. They were moving large boulders that day to, in part, block vehicles from getting into a dry brush area and potentially starting a fire. Browning said the “roadless rule” prevents such access that could increase the risk of fire. A recent peer-reviewed study supports that, finding that although roads are important for managing a fire once it ignites, they’re also more likely to be a place where a fire starts.

Though addressing wildfires and protecting public lands have become heavily politicized under the Trump administration, Browning thinks most locals probably aren’t as divided.

“ I don't think this is a party issue,” he said. “We want to hold onto the outdoors and protect them as best we can.”

There unfortunately isn’t much respite in sight for heat-weary Southern Californians.

Forecasters say this week’s heat wave is likely to be the hottest so far this summer. Extreme heat warnings will be in effect from the National Weather Service for almost the entire region from Tuesday morning through Friday evening.

Temperatures will peak between Tuesday and Thursday.

Highs in downtown Los Angeles are expected to reach around 100 degrees, and the warmest inland valleys will get up to 112. L.A. County beaches will hit the high 80s.

Forecasters have also issued Red Flag Warnings for the interior mountains and foothills of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Gusty winds and low humidity at higher elevations mean fires could spark and spread quickly.

At lower elevations, humidity continues to make the heat feel more sweltering and make it harder to cool down, especially at night. Nighttime temperatures will only get down to the 70s in most places, including along the coast.

A slight cooldown is expected this weekend, though forecasters say temperatures will stay above normal into next week.

The extreme heat this week poses an especially high risk of heat-related illness for people over 65, young children, people who work or spend a lot of time outside and those without access to air conditioning.

Driving the heat

Several factors are behind this week’s heat wave, many of which have also been behind the rest of this summer’s consistently hot weather.

The main driver is a high pressure air system hovering over the southwestern U.S., trapping warm air, compressing it and warming it further, and blocking cooler air from entering the region.

Offshore winds are also pushing warm inland air toward the coast, preventing cooler onshore winds from blowing inland.

“That blocks our natural air conditioning off the ocean from coming in as early as it normally does,” said Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. “So as long as that cool air stays offshore, it heats up on land.”

The offshore winds are not strong enough, however, to significantly dry out the air in the L.A. Basin and cut down on the humidity.

“That's probably going to be around for the whole summer because you’ve got all this warm ocean water that's feeding into that,” Wofford said.

Warmer seawater evaporates faster, adding to moisture in the air and increasing humidity across the region, especially along the coasts.

Air quality warnings

Along with the heat this week, many Southern Californians also have smog to worry about.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued an ozone advisory on Monday for inland areas of Los Angeles and Orange counties, much of Riverside County and parts of San Bernardino County. It will remain in effect through Friday evening.

The multi-day smog event is in part driven by the heatwave.

Officials say ozone pollution may reach unhealthy levels or higher in the Santa Clarita Valley, parts of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino valleys, and portions of the San Bernardino Mountains.

Under unhealthy levels, it’s possible for anyone to experience adverse health effects like difficulty breathing and throat irritation. Sensitive populations could experience more serious effects.

Levels are expected to be unhealthy for sensitive groups in the San Fernando Valley, Perris Valley, Mission Viejo, Lake Elsinore, Corona, Hemet, Riverside and Pasadena.

Officials advise certain vulnerable groups — including people with heart or lung disease, those with asthma, pregnant women, children and people over 65 — to limit their time outdoors.

Officials predict that ozone levels will be lower along the coast.