The Brief

The iconic Los Angeles Grand Central Market is a must-visit for both out of towners and Angelenos. Somehow the grand dame of downtown dining manages to combine great 100 plus year old character with today's burgeoning and creative food scene.

But with over 40 vendors offering tempting food, it can get a little overwhelming. (We've been there, we understand!)

This is our guide to hacking Grand Central Market — what to skip, what you can't miss — so you can try as many delicious things as possible.

Start small

It’s easy to experience sensory overload when you first start walking through the various stalls, and you’ll immediately start to see things you like. But remember — you're in for the long haul. Pick some shareable dishes to keep things light. For now.

Here's where you should start:

The shrimp cocktail at Broad Street Oyster Co.

Get ready to squeeze and dip.

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Sure, you can go for lobster rolls or a seafood tower, but if you want to go the distance at GCM, the shrimp cocktail from Broad Street Oyster Co. is the way to go. Four plump shrimp arrive over crushed ice with a side of cocktail sauce and a slice of lemon. Having a shrimp cocktail is always a good idea. There’s something about dipping shrimp spritzed with a bit of citrus into quality cocktail sauce that stirs the soul. It’s enough to share with others and won’t fill you up on the long food journey to come.

The currywurst platter at Berlin Currywurst

You can choose to have your bread on the side at Berlin Currywurst, or go all in and have your sausage delivered in a roll.

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Next up: The currywurst from Berlin Currywurst. The dish consists of sliced sausage, with a choice of pork, chicken, veal, beef, or tofu kielbasa, topped with a sweet currywurst sauce containing hints of tomato, vinegar, and spices accompanied by a nice round bun. It makes for a lovely snack to share with others. Dip the sausage into the curry sauce and place it on a torn piece of bread, and you'll feel like you’ve reached some kind of culinary nirvana.

The Korean fried chicken at Shiku

The perfect app: The Korean fried chicken from Shiku.

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Head to the Korean fried chicken at Shiku. The shareable, sizable chunks of fried chicken are made with a quality batter that’s equally crunchy and flavorful with each bite, especially when it comes topped with either their aji verde or sriracha aioli providing just the right kick. The vegan option, made with pyogo mushrooms, is also a solid choice. Pyogo is the Korean word for shitake and makes for a great non-meat option to try.

The Cali fries at Maple Block Meat Co.

These fries are loaded up!

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Mosey on over to Maple Block Meat Co., located on the outdoor patio section of the market, known for its delicious barbecue. However, our favorite option is their Cali fries. No doubt a play of the popular secret menu option Animal Style fries at In-N-Out, but dare we say we like the ones at Maple Block a tad more? The combination of cheese sauce, housemade thousand island dressing, grilled onions, and chopped chiles always seems to hit perfectly. Not to mention, the fries themselves will pair exceptionally with the cheeseburger from For The Win... which is coming right up.

Main Event: Entrees

Yes, that's entrees with an s.

The cheeseburger at For The Win

If you're sharing, why not add on an order of fries?

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Smash burgers are the gift that keeps on giving. You could throw a dart at a map of the greater Los Angeles area, and there’s a chance you’ll hit a place where you can find a good one. Here at the Grand Central Market, For The Win is where it’s at. The local chain, which has other locations in Hollywood, Glendale, and Whittier, should be on the list for anyone who loves an excellent smashed patty on a soft bun. What differentiates it from other burger joints is that For the Win goes the extra mile regarding the crucial details. The lacy edges on the burger patty tend to be slightly more crispy than most, with just the right amount of fatty flavor. The same goes for the creamy, slightly spicy fry sauce slathered on every burger. While the burger itself isn’t huge, you can cut it into fourths and share, especially if you are still saving room for a few other bites.

The mixed carnitas taco at Tacos Tumbos A Tomas

Those extra tortillas in the back make for convenient sharing: Everyone gets their own taco!

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For those looking for the most bang for your buck, the mixed carnitas taco from Tacos Tumbos A Tomas is the winner. It contains various pig parts, including pork shoulder, stomach, skin, and cheeks. It is piled high with meat, along with diced onion, cilantro, and your choice of red and green salsa. They include extra tortillas to assemble leftover makeshift tacos with taco dregs. Your taco cup will run over, and that’s a good thing. One taco can feed four or maybe even five people, depending on the hunger level, which is perfect as we’re only about halfway through our food crawl of GCM.

The loroco con queso at Saritas Pupuseria

If you have room in your belly, don't skip the fried plantains and beans from this iconic GCM stall.

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The iconic Saritas Pupuseria always seems to deliver: The loroco con queso, a personal favorite, is made with an edible flower that looks like a vegetable, similar to asparagus. Go ahead and try it. Its flavors meld perfectly into the cheese griddled stunningly into the fresh-tasting masa outside the pupusa. Top the pupusa off with the pickled slaw known as curtido and salsa roja. Don’t forget to add a side of sweet fried plantains, some black refried beans and crema Salvadoreña. It’s a feast that is perfect for sharing — or for taking home.

The LA Galbi BBQ rice bowl at Shiku

This is a favorite on the menu at Shiku.

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Next up, we're heading back for more at Shiku, but this time for a rice bowl: The LA Galbi. The story goes that when Korean immigrants started moving to Los Angeles and frequenting the various carnicerias searching for meat to grill, they discovered flanken-style short ribs thinly cut across the bone. They decided to marinate it in their galbi sauce, containing sweet and savory flavors with hints of garlic and sesame. The result is tender and saucy and pairs well over a bed of short-grained white rice. To add brightness to the plate, two sides of banchan, traditional Korean side dishes, accompany all rice bowls, making it enough to share. It's a dish celebrating two Los Angeles cultures coming together and Grand Central feels like a fitting location to experience it.

Save some room for dessert?

That's right. We're not done yet.

A tiger tail (and more!) from The Donut Man

Donuts are the right choice, no matter what time of day it is. You can also take these to go and enjoy later.

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We've been fans of The Donut Man since visiting their original location in Glendora. But no more do we need to make the long trip on the 210 Freeway in order to get our tiger tail fix and their signature seasonal fruit donut options. If you aren't familiar with it, the tiger tail is like an elongated cinnamon twist donut, roughly a foot-long, so it's perfect for sharing. Not to be outdone, the strawberry donut is a glazed donut cut open and then stuffed to the gills with strawberries until it resembles some kind of explosion. They're a little hard to bite into directly, so it's best to cut them up and share them with others who want to join in on the donut fun. When strawberries are not available, choose from donuts filled with diced apples, slices peaches.

A scoop from McConnell's Ice Cream

And this is why we suggested you bring a cooler. Purchase a scoop or a pint to go.

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Courtesy of McConnell's Fine Ice Creams

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You did it! You completed your food journey through Grand Central Market. Why not reward yourself with a scoop of ice cream from McConnell’s Ice Cream at one of the few places you can find this beloved brand in person, outside of its Santa Barbara homestead. There are favorites like coffee, vanilla bean and triple chocolate, but also flavor combos such as honey and cornbread. If you feel pretty full right now, maybe grab that scoop or pint to go and relish in the victory of everything you accomplished.

Topline:

Key topics: The candidates each had about 45 minutes to individually answer questions from Erin Stone, an LAist senior reporter focused on climate and environment.

Here are some of the topics they covered:

• Extreme heat
• Emergency preparedness and recovery
• Protecting communities from pollution
• Water
• Public transit

About the organizers: The event is organized by a coalition of local environmental and environmental justice groups including: Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters, SCOPE-LA, Sierra Club, Clean and Healthy California, Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance and Communities for a Better Environment

LAist will have more coverage and analysis of the conversations Friday morning.

The Trump administration is taking steps to advance a mysterious and unprecedented project to compile state-by-state lists of people it has decided are eligible citizens over the age of 18 who can vote in the upcoming midterm election. But it will no longer meet its own deadline to publish that information on a portal on Friday, which is 60 days before Election Day.

Department of Justice attorneys told opposing counsel in two separate lawsuits that instead of meeting the Sept. 4 deadline, they would give 48-hours notice to plaintiffs' counsel before the state citizenship portal was launched, according to recent court filings.

The U.S. has never attempted to create a comprehensive list of American citizens before this administration. Maintaining voter lists is the responsibility of states, not the federal government, as the Constitution dictates that states control elections. But President Trump has repeatedly taken steps to try to exert executive control over elections.

The basis for the federal government creating state citizenship lists is an executive order Trump signed on March 31. A lower court had blocked implementation of key parts of that executive order in 23 states and Washington, D.C., but the Supreme Court stayed that injunction late last month, opening the door for the plan to be implemented after all.

The March 31 executive order directs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to create "State Citizenship Lists" of individuals the agencies believe are citizens in each state, and send those lists to state officials "no fewer than 60 days before each regularly scheduled Federal election."

The next section of the executive order says the U.S. attorney general will prioritize investigating and prosecuting state and local officials who issue federal ballots to anyone not eligible to vote.

"States here have a strong incentive to actually use these lists to try to avoid federal investigation," said Jules Torti, counsel at the nonprofit Protect Democracy, in an interview with NPR. "But we know that these lists are going to be based on really inaccurate data. So the risk of disenfranchisement here is really, really palpable."

The privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with individual voters, filed a motion Thursday asking a federal judge in Maryland to block the administration from creating the citizenship lists and publishing them on a portal. Specifically, they seek to block a June 8 implementation memo authored by USCIS director Joseph Edlow that outlines the plan.

The motion, which was brought by Protect Democracy, along with another nonprofit legal group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, argues the administration's plans to share Americans' personal data between agencies and then disseminate the data to states violates multiple federal laws, including the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. Under the Privacy Act, federal agencies must give the public 30 days notice and the opportunity to comment before they collect and disseminate Americans' personal data for a new purpose.

The EPIC lawsuit also argues the government does not have access to accurate, up-to-date information on American citizens, especially those who move frequently, have changed their names, or are foreign-born. For example, Social Security's citizenship data often isn't updated when people naturalize, and the SAVE data system, operated by USCIS, frequently doesn't include records for people who became citizens as minors when their parents naturalized.

Torti said it is "deeply concerning" that the administration is still planning to go ahead with the creation of citizenship lists but is no longer going to meet the deadline, since that means the lists will be completed even closer to Election Day.

"It means additional chaos, additional confusion for the state election officials and just for voters," Torti said. "And I think that's the point. The point here is to create chaos in advance of the election."

Neither the Department of Justice, nor the Department of Homeland Security, which is tasked with compiling the citizenship lists, responded to NPR's request for comment.

The June 8 implementation memo stated that the portal for state election officials would be available around June 30 and a second portal where citizens could check their information would be available at a later date – but that deadline passed without further updates.

The federal government has secured a domain for the state citizenship lists portal. While the portal is not currently online, it was briefly live in recent days with a landing page that said "Coming Soon," according to court filings.

Lawyers representing Democratic party groups that had challenged the March 31 executive order in a separate lawsuit filed in April, accused the administration in a recent filing of failing to notify the court or the parties about its plans to move forward with the state citizenship portal. They asked the judge to require the federal government to give immediate updates about their plans to implement the executive order.

This latest legal battle over the administration's plans to compile state citizenship lists comes as the Department of Homeland Security is ramping up its efforts to analyze state voter rolls with the goal of identifying potential noncitizens who are registered to vote. Previous audits have found instances of noncitizens casting ballots to be incredibly rare. 

Additionally, last week, ICE published a request for information on a federal procurement site seeking vendors who can compile public voter rolls and voter history files from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, "to support Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) fraud detection and data segmentation activities."

NPR's Hansi Lo Wang contributed reporting to this story. 
Copyright 2026 NPR

A group of California lawmakers called on federal officials to halt and reject a proposed land exchange in Yosemite National Park that would allow a private developer to take control of a strip of land in the park for an access road to the park’s main attractions.

The letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday was signed by a bipartisan group of 61 state legislators led by Assemblymember Greg Wallis, a Republican who represents Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“Republicans and Democrats from both houses of the Legislature are standing together because some things are bigger than politics,” Wallis said in a statement. “Yosemite is not a subdivision. It is not a bargaining chip. And it is not for sale. Secretary Burgum and the administration should put an end to this proposal.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (center) visited the Tunnel Tops in San Francisco in 2025 after he and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi toured Alcatraz ahead of their announcement to reopen the former federal prison.

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The group argued that the proposed land exchange is counter to the mission of the National Park Service and the founding of Yosemite in 1864, which set aside the start of the park for public use and protection for the first time in the history of the federal government.

“What is being proposed now runs directly against that founding principle, more than a century and a half later,” the letter states.

It continues later: “Our national parks belong equally to every American. They are not the Department’s to trade away, and they are not for sale.”

The proposal was first reported by news outlet NOTUS, which published a story last week alleging that members of the Trump administration were meeting with representatives of Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a private equity group that owns an 83-acre parcel next to the park. In an email to KQED, Kingsbarn’s lawyer Lanny J. Davis confirmed the group is pursuing the land exchange to build a new access road from its property to the park.

Previous owners have pushed for the same deal since the early 2000s and failed in court.

State Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), who signed on to the letter, called the proposal “indefensible,” and said he’s looking at state laws to ensure a similar proposal could never slip through.

“If the Trump administration can’t defend this publicly in broad daylight, then they shouldn’t be doing it,” he said.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Marin) told KQED’s Forum on Wednesday that he’s worried there isn’t enough opposition among his Republican colleagues in Congress to stop the Trump administration’s efforts.

“I have not seen a single Republican colleague willing to stand up to Donald Trump when he decides that he’s just going to do something,” Huffman said. “So that is my concern, that he just plows ahead with this — even if it has dubious legal authority, or even if it’s an open violation of the law. He’s doing stuff like that anyway. And in this Congress, there’s no one here to stop him.”

In a statement to KQED, state Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil (R-Modesto), whose district includes parts of Yosemite, said she will “keep pressing the Department [of the Interior] for a clear answer that this exchange will not proceed.”

Since the news of the deal broke late last week, it has sparked condemnation from a number of Democratic state leaders, including Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, as well as Attorney General Rob Bonta and Bonta’s predecessor, Xavier Becerra, who leads the race for California governor.

“The secretive backroom land-exchange scheme has gotten everyone’s attention,” said Neal Desai, senior Pacific regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. “I can’t recall another issue — and I’ve been working in the conservation space for over a couple of decades — where the response has been this sharp and so one-sided that this is a terrible idea that should not happen.”

The backlash comes at a turbulent time for National Park Service employees, who have faced layoffs, staffing cuts and fear of retaliation for speaking up against Trump administration policies since the start of the second Trump administration.

Some former employees have also raised concerns about a potential reorganization of the National Park Service, according to a separate letter sent to Burgum’s office Wednesday. According to an email seen by KQED, park superintendents have been asked to attend in-person regional meetings in September — with no clear agenda beyond discussing “agency priorities, our FY 2026 outlook, and other matters important to the work ahead.”

The letter to Burgam, signed by 20 retired parks superintendents warns: “An ill-advised and hastily planned reorganization could dismantle that structure, putting our parks — and those who visit them — at great risk.”

Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, which organized the letter, said the email about regional meetings “raises some alarm bells.”

“The Park Service is already operating from a difficult place, from a place of crisis,” she said. “And any additional cuts, any movements or actions that would further jeopardize the capacity of the folks that are left, that’s concerning. It’s worrying, and it’ll have a devastating impact on the Park Service.”

Among the letter’s signatories is Don Neubacher, retired Yosemite superintendent, who has been a vocal advocate for parks amid the Trump administration’s changes.

Thompson said she’s worried parks leaders will be stretched even further than they already are, and local decision-making over parks could be in jeopardy.

“Morale is low,” Thompson said. “It’s a hard time to be a federal employee. Anything that … contributes to this culture of fear, it’s just not acceptable.”

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Long Beach is offering up to $1,500 for local business owners and landlords to equip their storefronts with safety measures like cameras, floodlights, alarms and point-of-sale systems.

The grant program is accepting online applications now. You can apply here.

Businesses with storefronts of 1,500 square feet or less may receive grants of up to $750, while businesses between 1,500 and 5,000 square feet are eligible for up to $1,500.

Nonprofit organizations are eligible as well, and landlords can apply on behalf of commercial storefronts that are vacant or occupied. Franchises can also receive the grant.

To qualify, a business must:

• Have an active business license for a storefront within the city
• Be independently owned and operated (franchises are eligible)
• Be currently open and active for business
• Earn no more than $5 million in annual gross revenue
• Hold “active” status with the California Secretary of State for corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships

The funds will be provided as a reimbursement after eligible security improvements are installed. Grants will be given out until funds are exhausted.

It’s a great idea, according to Edwin Jara, who manages a pet store in Belmont Heights and was on the receiving end of a break-in earlier this year.

His store had security measures already in place — two cameras and an alarm system — but even that wasn’t enough to deter a masked burglar who grabbed $1,000 cash and a handful of dog treats.

Despite having footage of the burglar, Jara said police haven’t been able to catch the person and that a detective never responded after he filed a police report.

The grant program is being paid for with $350,000 from the city’s Redvelopment Agency along with $50,000 from Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office.

“Our local small businesses are part of the fabric of our neighborhoods, and when business owners feel unsafe, the whole community feels it,” Hahn said in a statement.

In a statement, Mayor Rex Richardson said the program is a “direct investment in the hardworking business owners who make our commercial corridors vibrant and welcoming.”

Jara said he would consider applying for a grant if the city could send someone to help him and the store’s owner fill out the application.

He was offered a separate grant to replace a glass door the burglar smashed, but the store’s owner opted not to fill out the application.

“There was a lot of stuff that we needed to do, and I don’t have a lot of that information,” Jara said.