The Brief

As cars and trucks zoom by, Rurick Palomino points to the underside of the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge that spans the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., where his crew of about 30 workers is doing demolition work and pouring concrete as part of a $128 million federally-funded refurbishment.

A Peruvian immigrant who came to the United States 25 years ago, Palomino — a U.S. citizen — built his construction firm from scratch after earning an engineering degree and learning the trade firsthand. He once employed 45 workers but has since scaled back. "There's plenty of work — a lot of mega-projects coming — but I'm afraid to take more because I don't have the manpower," he says.

Rurick Palomino stands beside the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge in Washington, D.C., where his crew of 30 workers is doing demolition and repair.

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For years, the construction industry — in which on average one in three workers is foreign-born — has struggled with a yawning labor shortage that President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown is making worse, industry officials warn. In D.C., for example, that has meant Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) checkpoints that have swept up Latino workers on their way to and from work.

"I personally saw a checkpoint here on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway," Palomino said. "All construction pickups. So, it's happening."

"People are scared," he continues.

As ICE agents fan out to detain and deport undocumented immigrants, their enforcement actions are creating unease among both undocumented and documented workers on building sites across the U.S., deepening the already severe labor shortage, slowing the pace of construction and driving up costs, industry officials and contractors say.

From the first day of his second term, Trump began issuing executive orders and proclamations aimed at reversing the flow of migrants at the southern border — apprehending and deporting undocumented individuals and seeking to end birthright citizenship. In September, the Department of Homeland Security said that ICE had deported 400,000 people since the start of Trump's second term and that an estimated 1.6 million had self-deported.

Day laborers — many of whom are undocumented — often gather in Home Depot parking lots and in August, federal agents carried out raids near the construction supply stores in the Los Angeles area. In one instance, a Guatemalan migrant fled across a freeway where he was struck by a vehicle and killed. The Department of Homeland Security says ICE arrested more than 100 people in June at a construction site in Tallahassee, Fla. In October, four construction workers were arrested during a similar raid in St. Paul, Minn.

A survey by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) conducted over the summer found that 92% of construction firms struggle to fill positions. In the past six months, 28% of the surveyed firms said they were affected by immigration actions — 5% said ICE agents had visited a jobsite, 10% said they had lost workers due to actual or rumored ICE raids, and 20% reported those concerns caused subcontractors to lose staff.

"Firms say it's extremely disruptive when workers fail to show up or leave in the middle of a task," says Ken Simonson, chief economist at AGC — the construction industry's largest and oldest trade association. It means jobs are completed more slowly, driving up costs for the owner and contractor, he says. "A building project is step by step. So it's fine if you get the foundation poured and the beams up to hold up the building. But if you can't put on the roof, you're not going to be able to finish things off," he says.

Simonson says he is concerned that if the enforcement actions are stepped up, "this is just the cusp of what we'll be seeing."

NPR reached out to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, but received no reply to specific questions about how raids are affecting the construction industry. However, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in an emailed statement: "There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force, and President Trump's agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this Administration's commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws."

A palpable anxiety among Latino construction workers

Palomino says he doesn't hire people who can't provide proof that they have a legal right to work in the U.S. — even though allowing people to work without that proof is common in construction, he says. The members of his workforce — originally from Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia and his native Peru — are all employees with a Social Security number and a driver's license. That's a necessity to work on a government project. For Palomino, playing by the rules means competing for an even smaller labor pool.

But workers with work permits and green cards worry they too could be detained. Recently, Palomino said, several of his employees were stopped by ICE on their way into work, with agents holding them for hours before eventually releasing them. "I guess they were checking their background or whatever," he says. "We could not accomplish what we were supposed to do that day. And that, in turn, put us behind schedule."

Sergio Barajas, head of the National Hispanic Construction Alliance, notes that although the number of actual ICE raids has been limited so far, the anxiety among Latino workers — documented and undocumented alike — is palpable. "That in and of itself is resulting in crews not showing up or a reduced number of persons on a given crew showing up," he says.

That wariness is so pervasive, he adds, that some Latino-owned firms are removing business signs from their trucks and vans to avoid being identified as construction crews so they won't be targeted.

Barajas says there's "a bit of a hierarchy" in the industry, with infrastructure work like Palomino's firm does at the top, followed by commercial contractors, then mixed use and residential. At the lowest rungs, immigrants make up a higher percentage of trades such as plasterers and stucco masons, drywall and ceiling tile installers, roofers, painters and flooring installers, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Those jobs are desperately needed in the home-building industry, where the ongoing shortage of workers costs $11 billion annually, the Home Building Institute (HBI) estimates. In the U.S., the gap between supply and demand in the housing market is roughly 1.5 million housing units, NAHB says.

Scott Turner, a homebuilder in the Austin, Texas, area, says where he is located, ICE raids haven't yet been high-profile enough to be a major source of cost increases, but they "can only have one effect on the cost of building a home, and that's to raise it."

A labor shortage that goes back decades

To be sure, the labor shortage predates the current crackdown on immigration, according to Jim Tobin, NAHB president and CEO. "Even when we were building more homes than we needed in the early 2000s, we still were facing a labor shortage," he says.

He blames a long-running emphasis in the U.S. on four-year college degrees that, in turn, has devalued education in the trades. It's a point of view that gets a lot of nods of agreement among contractors. "Since we've done a terrible job of educating our domestic workforce, we've had to increase the pull from across our borders," Tobin says.

Kenny Mallick at a job site in Virginia. Mallick says he is retiring after three decades in construction, largely over frustration with the "broken labor system" that keeps the industry going.

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Kenny Mallick, a plumbing and heating contractor based in Gaithersburg, Md, says that's created a broken labor system that hurts the economy and is unfair to hardworking migrants. "They're taking risks every day by coming to work. They could be locked up and deported," he says.

Mallick says he voted for Trump and agrees with the president's stance that people who have committed crimes should be deported. However, he says one thing is clear: "We can't do what we do in this country without these people," he says. "They're stitched into every element of our fabric — from the people cooking in restaurants to the ones pouring concrete or laying brick." In return, he says, "we exploit the s*** out of these people."

Mallick has worked in the construction industry for 30 years. But as he turns 59, he is planning to step back from the business — in large part, he says, because of these frustrations. He believes he and other contractors like himself need to stand up and tell the government "stop taking our people. We need them."

The roots of the labor shortage go back at least 25 years. In the early 2000s, as the labor shortage grew amid a building boom, immigrants were filling many of the openings, especially in residential construction. "Undocumented immigrants became a key source of profitability in the industry," says Nik Theodore, the director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

That trend accelerated with the Great Recession, when the bottom fell out of the industry. Many U.S.-born workers left construction jobs and sought employment elsewhere. During the recovery, "contractors increasingly turned to immigrants to meet the shortage," Theodore says.

Now the Trump administration's enforcement efforts are leaving the construction industry to cope with an ever-widening shortage of workers, Theodore says. Contractors, he says, are "going to have to pay more for the available workers" because "we're not just losing workers — we're losing workers who know how to drywall, lay flooring. There are real skill gaps."

A 2023 report by NAHB shows that California and New Jersey have the highest percentage of foreign-born construction workers at 41% each, but that concentrations are nearly as high across the south, where construction is booming and wages are low. Texas and Florida both had 38%, Georgia 30% and Virginia and North Carolina at 27% each.

Theodore sees an irony in that "most contractors in the South are lifelong Republicans" who voted for Trump: "They agreed with him on deregulation and taxes, and they convinced themselves [that] Trump's rhetoric would focus on criminals, not the day-to-day construction workforce."

Mallick says he has always tried to run an "open shop" — one where employees aren't required to join a union. But he's competing against contractors who hire cheaper undocumented workers recruited through middle men called labor brokers. Those workers, he says, "are probably getting $25 an hour. The open-shop guy, $40. The union guy, $60."

Meanwhile, the union worker has all but disappeared. An Associated Builders and Contractors analysis published earlier this year shows that the percentage of unionized workers in the construction industry has fallen to a record low of just over 10% from nearly 40% in 1973.

Mark Erlich, a fellow at the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School and a former head of the New England Carpenters Union, says declining unionization is partly responsible for "real wage stagnation" in the industry, adding: "There's tension between the political imperative of deportations and the interests of contractors who want certainty in planning their business."

Will U.S.-born workers fill the construction labor gap?

The White House suggests that mass deportations open up new job opportunities for U.S.-born workers; in that August statement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote, "as illegal aliens continue to exit the labor force, more Americans are finding steady and gainful employment."

Deportations leave holes to fill in the construction industry, but Mallick, Palomino and others say there are few U.S.-born workers willing to take them. In a report published in July, the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute, concluded that if the Trump administration meets its goal of deporting 4 million people by the end of 2028, 1.4 million immigrants who work in the construction industry would be lost. And there would be a net loss of 861,000 jobs among U.S.-born workers, partly because the sudden removal of part of the work force could force contractors to rapidly scale back or shut down entirely.

Palomino, for one, doesn't buy the administration's argument. "Contrary to whatever the government thinks," he says, the industry is not attracting new, native-born workers. "They don't want to come to work in construction." Nor Mallick: "There's not anyone sitting on the sidelines. Unemployment is low. Where are you going to get them at? The trades aren't sexy."

In April, Trump issued an executive order promising to modernize the skilled trades workforce. But the order offered few details. In June, the Department of Labor also established a temporary Office of Immigration Policy that the administration says is a one-stop-shop aimed at helping employers secure the workforce they need and to create legal pathways for immigrants to work.

Erlich thinks the industry could bring in more U.S.-born workers if the pay and conditions were more attractive. "When conditions have become so degraded — both compensation and safety — [it's] no surprise people don't join," he says. "Attracting people to an industry depends on whether they can have a legitimate career and prospects. It's not about kids not wanting to work — it's about the opportunity structure."

Palomino echoes a common refrain in the construction industry — the solution, he says, is a visa program for immigrant workers: "Maybe [the government] can create a path — even if not for citizenship — for good workers to be allowed to work without fear," he says. Most workers in his business, he says, "just want to live and go day by day."

That's the way Palomino sees himself. "I came to the U.S. with one suitcase," he says, "and now I have three families working for me. I think I've fulfilled my American dream — doing everything the right way, one step at a time."

Copyright 2025 NPR

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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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Nick Ducassi

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.