Topline:
Unbound by the confines of a brick-and-mortar restaurant, Three Pigs specializes not just in yakitori, but a chef-driven, seasonal take on Japanese cooking.
Why track down Three Pigs: Proof that a pop-up can be something more than just a roving restaurant—it can be a conduit for creativity and community.
What to eat: Charred chicken thigh skewers, tender braised pork belly bowls, and an ever-changing list of market-driven specials.
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.
Yakitori is what first launched Three Pigs. 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.”
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.
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.
Location and hours: Visit Three Pigs on Instagram at @threepigslbc for upcoming pop-ups and events.
Topline:
With KNX's shift last month back to AM radio only, we asked Southern Californians to share their memories of listening to the radio.
Why now: Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced it was moving KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — off 97.1 FM, but keeping the long-running news format on 1070 AM where it's been for more than 100 years. The move officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station.
A radio time capsule: AirTalk, LAist's flagship daily news show which airs on 89.3 FM, asked listeners to share their favorite memories of listening to the radio.
Continue reading... for vintage photos from The Los Angeles Public Library's digital archive collections highlighting Southern California's rich radio history.
Southern California was built on radio.
"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”
Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.
The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.
Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.
“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”
Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:
“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.
Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”
Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."
"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."
"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations — Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said Carrie in Desert Edge.
“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”
Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.
As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.
Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…
“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.
Topline:
After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.
What's in the deal? The private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.
What happens now: The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the city council. The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.
Concerns remain: The contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.
Read on...for more on concerns over security costs for 2028.
After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.
According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.
The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.
The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.
Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.
Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.
"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.
But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.
Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.
The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.
To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.
But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.
Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.
" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.
The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.
The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.
Topline:
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed a pair of executive orders Monday to ramp up efforts to clean the mess left by the fire that burned for a week at a Boyle Heights warehouse.
Why now: Since the warehouse fire was put out, the 85 million pounds of frozen food stored inside is now rotting, spreading foul smells throughout surrounding neighborhoods and raising concerns about an influx of pests. Residents have also been left with worries about air and water contamination after the fire and possible long-term public health effects.
Spoiled food removal: Bass and city officials said Monday the warehouse owner, Lineage, began moving food debris on Sunday to landfills in Ventura and Riverside counties. The company predicts it will take 5,000 truckloads to remove it all.
Reducing odors: Lineage plans to apply a chemical deodorizer, likely chlorine dioxide, to the food, debris and trucks leaving the warehouse. It’s also installing devices within the warehouse that will spray mist over the food inside until it is moved.
Pest control: Lineage is responsible for pest management inside the warehouse, while the city of Los Angeles is responsible for it outside the warehouse. Both have hired private contractors to manage pest control.
Air and water testing: The South Coast Air Quality Management District is overseeing efforts to measure harmful material in the air and posting data to its online air quality map. Lineage also hired private contractor Onterris to monitor air quality in the community surrounding the warehouse, with South Coast AQMD’s oversight. The Los Angeles Department of Sanitation has been monitoring water flowing from the site since firefighting operations began. It’s using a variety of methods, including containment tanks and catch basins, to divert the runoff into the sewer and prevent it from flowing into the L.A. River.
What’s next: Bass’ two executive orders are intended to accelerate cleanup efforts, protect residents and hold accountable the companies responsible for the facility and its safety. One order directs the Fire Department to report on its investigation into the cause of the fire within 90 days. The orders also include a number of provisions to help Boyle Heights residents and businesses, including free public transit, financial assistance and expanded public health resources.
Why it matters: Officials and advocates have called for transparency around the cleanup, especially because they say the neighborhood has been historically under-resourced and disproportionately subjected to environmental burdens. One of the orders signed Monday directs city officials to compile a report within 45 days on industrial areas across Los Angeles that sit close to homes and schools. The report also must include possible zoning and land use changes that would reduce negative health effects from existing and future industrial facilities.
Topline:
L.A.’s lead homelessness agency, LAHSA, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Monday, asking a judge for relief from a federal funding suspension it calls unjustified.
How we got here: On June 11, HUD suspended the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority from federal grant activity pending an investigation into alleged mismanagement. The federal agency said the suspension means LAHSA cannot fulfill its role as collaborative applicant for the entire region’s application for federal homelessness dollars for the upcoming fiscal year. In its lawsuit, LAHSA says the suspension is the Trump administration’s back door attempt to eliminate the Continuum of Care program in L.A., which gives local officials discretion over homelessness projects submitted for federal funding.
LAHSA’s challenge: LAHSA says HUD has failed to identify any public agreement or transaction that LAHSA has violated or cite proper evidence of mismanagement. LAHSA also claims several inaccuracies and misrepresentations in HUD’s original suspension letter, including relying on reviews that LAHSA says were irrelevant to federal funding. “HUD supports its position with an amalgamation of uncorroborated hearsay information apparently cherry-picked from the internet,” the complaint states.
Legal argument: LAHSA's attorneys contend that HUD unlawfully suspended funding, arguing that the action violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the Constitution's separation of powers principle, and the Tenth Amendment. LAHSA is asking for a stay of the HUD suspension pending judicial review and a permanent injunction barring head from suspending LAHSA or blocking the work of the Los Angeles Continuum of Care.
Why it matters: The deadline for the L.A. region to submit its application to HUD for regional homelessness grants is Aug. 26. LAHSA says the suspension jeopardizes $241 million in federal funding that supports more than 11,000 people across L.A. County. LAHSA says the HUD suspension could prevent the agency from other activities, including releasing the findings of its 2026 homeless count conducted in January.
