The Brief

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on May 16, 2025.

Across from a vendor stall at El Mercadito adorned with El Niño Dios dolls, rosaries and paintings of La Virgen and The Last Supper, dozens of grinning elf-like figurines are stealing the spotlight.

Shoppers, young and old, stop to admire the dolls dressed in Dodgers gear, Gucci overalls or popular fast-food-chain-inspired outfits.

“I kind of like the Starbucks uniform,” one customer whispered to a family member. A young girl tugged at her mom’s shirt, asking when she could get her first Labubu — the wildly popular rabbit-eared toy from Chinese manufacturer Pop Mart that’s taken the Eastside, and much of the world, by storm.

“Everybody at school has one,” 12-year-old Kevin Martinez said, curious if the Labubus on display were authentic. “I think people find them cute and then it becomes a popularity thing. But I think the trend might go away one day.”

While many turn to online sales to score the latest collection, the Labubu craze has become a cash cow for local vendors and small businesses — from Cesar Chavez Avenue street sellers to Eastside shopkeepers capitalizing on the soaring demand for the tiny dolls. Vendors are riding the trend to draw crowds, but they’re also building a mini-economy, offering affordable prices and creating community.

Several Labubus sporting clothing and accessories hang facing the El Mercadito hallway.

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The frenzy has led Enar Romero to make Labubus the centerpiece of his toy and collectible shop at El Mercadito. A wall is dedicated to miniature clothing options — including what appear to be Gucci and Prada knock-offs — and tiny plastic cameras and glasses to further accessorize what’s become a fashion accessory in itself.

“It’s just a really hot item. I can’t really explain it,” Romero said.

And he’s not alone. Shirts and dolls of various colors are also found across corners and corridors on the Eastside. Vendors stock oversized Labubu dolls, themed tumblers, backpacks and T-shirts emblazoned with El Chavo del Ocho-themed Labubus. Some dolls — with questionable authenticity but just as much flair — wear sombreros and serapes.

Maria Morena holds up a Labubu outside her toy stand at El Mercadito.

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Inside the Eastside Labubu economy

On Pop Mart’s website, dolls from a series called “The Monsters” sell for around $30, but some exclusive drops can go for much more and resell for upwards of $700. Limited or not, Labubus are known to sell out in minutes online.

Part of the craze is driven by its “blind box” model, which gives buyers a random toy from a set, according to Sandor Ferencz, a professor of international trade finance at Cal State L.A. When customers have a particular variant in mind, they’ll keep buying until they get the one they want, he said.

“If we think of the blind box as a model economically, it’s unique because it combines collectibility, scarcity and it’s random,” Ferencz said. “It monetizes this desire for that rare product, and that uncertainty, it’s successful.”

But the trend could be short-lived as President Trump’s proposed tariffs on Chinese imports threaten to raise prices and choke supply.

Ferencz said the tariffs could hurt the vendors’ ability to sell both licensed and unlicensed products, potentially driving up prices. And because the item is still a hot commodity, parents and collectors may rush to buy it before prices change.

For shoppers seeking more affordable prices, the tariffs may limit supply of unlicensed Labubu dolls and accessories. Romero, who resells authentic Labubus at his shop, says he also stocks unlicensed options at lower prices to make the trend more accessible.

“They still like it,” he said. “I even have grown-ups come up to me saying they don’t want to carry a $60 toy on their purse and get it dirty.”

But if Trump’s tariffs continue to disrupt the supply chain, he may be forced to raise prices.

“Companies are not shipping like they used to,” Romero said, referring to the ongoing effects from tariffs first imposed under Trump, which have recently been temporarily reduced. “Most likely, we are going to have to change prices because of that. We don’t know, maybe next week or the following, because the merchandise is not flowing like it used to.”

Labubu plush dolls hang at a vendor’s stall at El Mercadito.

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Toys building community

Twenty minutes before business owner Yesenia Castro opened the doors to her restaurant, Pink & Boujee, a line wrapping around the block had formed ahead of a Labubu-themed brunch in February.

“It’s honestly been so crazy because I didn’t know how many Labubu fans there were out there,” Castro said. “We had families that came out, the moms, the grandmas, buying Labubus, dressing up their Labubus and having that connection with each other.”

After seeing people taking selfies with a human-sized Labubu and obsessing over Labubu lattes and cookies at her restaurant, she started holding a small vending pop-up to sell the coveted creatures, accessories for the dolls, Sonny Angel figurines, and other blind box toys.

The 29-year-old business owner’s first Labubu-themed brunch was so successful, she held a second similar event in April and said more may be on the way.

”It might just be a trend, but I think beyond that, it could really be like healing your inner child in a way,” Castro said, explaining how she’s seen her mom filled with excitement while unboxing Labubus.

Contrasting some analysts’ claims that Labubus are “recession proof,” Ferencz, the professor, believes, similarly to Furbies or Beanie Babies, the trend may not last forever. “It’s a bubble. And at one point this bubble will deflate,” he said.

But until it does, vendors like Romero and Castro will continue offering miniature Louis Vuitton shoes, Dodger bucket hats and clear, plastic protective carrying cases for their customers’ Labubus.

The Surfrider Foundation is hosting a protest in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday to oppose what it sees as mounting threats to our California coastline.

In 2015, a pipeline operated by Plains All American spilled more than 100,000 gallons of crude oil near Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. Hundreds of marine mammals were killed or injured and beaches across the region were contaminated.

Bill Hickman, a senior regional manager with the Surfrider Foundation, remembers it well.

“I live in Ventura. We had a bottlenose dolphin wash up here that was covered in oil,” Hickman told LAist. “That was really sad to see. And there was oil on the beach all the way down to L.A.”

The spill also “shut down fisheries, closed multiple beaches, and impacted recreational uses such as camping, non-commercial fishing, and beach visits,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In March, the Trump administration invoked the Defense Production Act to bring that same pipeline, now run by Texas-based Sable Offshore, back online. The company says that the system will produce tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day, as well as “provide a secure, consistent source of domestic crude oil, replacing approximately 1 million barrels per month of imports.”

But Hickman and other environmental advocates say restarting the pipeline raises serious concerns. California sued the Trump administration in March to keep it shut.

The restart, along with the Trump administration’s push to open the California coast up to new oil and gas drilling for the first time in decades, has Hickman sounding the alarm.

“Right now it seems like if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention,” Hickman said. “And luckily a lot of people are really fired up about all of the threats to the environment and particularly the Santa Barbara channel.”

Oil spills like the one in 2015 could also deeply affect tourism, the fishing industry and lead to billions in cleanup costs, according to Gov, Gavin Newsom’s office. In a January 2026 statement opposing the Trump administration’s new offshore drilling plans, the governor’s office said the state's coastal economy “supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and generates over $44 billion annually.”

On Sunday morning, Hickman will be part of a spiritual ritual in surf culture: a paddle-out into the ocean at Refugio State Beach.

He said anyone with a human-powered craft is welcome to join the circle to oppose drilling on our coasts.

“People are standing up. There’s a lot of opposition,” Hickman said. “Californians really treasure our coast, our beaches, our waves and really want to protect them.”

For one weekend only, fans of Los Angeles-made chocolate chip cookies can engage in the cookie-focused version of a bar crawl, patronizing five established cookie purveyors as part of a quest to get even more cookies.

The “1st Annual Cookie Crawl” is a partnership by Milkfarm (Eagle Rock), Proof Bakery Co-Op (Atwater Village), Friends & Family (Silver Lake), Modu Cafe (Highland Park) and Valerie (Echo Park), all independently owned businesses.

You can go to any one of those locations, pick up a punch card, get a punch for a cookie, and subsequently get punched for getting cookies from the other locations, too. Drop it off at your preferred location by Sunday afternoon for a chance to win more of that store's cookies plus gift certificates from the others.

Why we celebrate the chocolate chip

The crawl honors this year’s National Chocolate Chip Day, on May 15, not to be confused with National Chocolate Day in October, or National Cookie Day in December, or National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day in August.

You can appreciate chocolate chips and the cookies they’re baked into without any historical knowledge, but just in case you are curious: While LAist couldn’t find a verified origin of National Chocolate Chip Day, internet records show the day nominally celebrates Ruth Graves Wakefield, the baker behind Toll House cookies. Cookie history sleuths dispute that Wakefield actually created the modern chocolate chip, but she did popularize them. (Earlier versions of chocolate chips include chocolate-coated molasses.)

Why you should participate in a chocolate chip cookie crawl

Milkfarm owner Leah Park developed the idea for this crawl years ago after talking with Proof founder Na Young Ma about how popular each shop's cookies are. Park said she wanted to do something collaborative, to encourage people to go out and try new things.

“I was starting to get it all together. We did the prototype for the punch card,” Park said. That was in early 2020; that first cookie crawl became another opportunity stifled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“And so everything just got put on hold. And I had the prototype punchcard that I made on my corkboard in my office since 2020,” Park said. “And I just kept looking at it, and finally one day I was like, ‘OK, I just need to hurry up and do this.’ And then it launched this year. We finally did it.”

Atwater Village resident Kenneth Rudnicki filled the majority of his card Friday morning.

“I would love more punchcards in L.A.,” he said. “I think it's a really good way for other businesses to get introduced to people who maybe wouldn't know them. And … it's fun to sort of have a task like this to do.” He bought several cookies to slice apart and share with friends.

And I did that too: As the senior editor of our esteemed LAist Education Team, I invited our available education reporters — in the name of hard-hitting journalism, of course — to sample all the cookies I brought back. You’ll see our notes below, with thoughts from me and:

• Julia Barajas,
• Sabrina Sanchez, early childhood engagement producer
• Elly Yu, early childhood reporter

Also, this list isn’t a ranking; one aspect of this crawl is that each cookie shows off how a baking classic can be transformed into something unique. And that means you can trade takes with other people about what makes a cookie great.

Let's eat cookies

A Proof Co-op chocolate chip cookie.

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Proof Bakery Co-op

Proof staff told me that they use Valrhona chocolate for a product that, as our tasters describe, is an ideal chocolate chip cookie — “crunchy on the outside, but, like, really soft and, like, buttery on the inside. The chocolate’s the right amount of sweet, and then you got the salt that's really nice.” We paired it with hot drip coffee, an excellent companion.

A Friends & Family chocolate chip cookie.

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Friends & Family (Silver Lake Outpost)

The original Friends & Family is in Hollywood, but this branch adjacent to Burgers Never Say Die also offers the bakery’s rye chocolate chip cookie, which staff members said is made with rich TCHO chocolate. Our tasters noted the earthiness of the rye — one said it comes across almost gingery. Despite the crinkly outside edge, it’s a bit chewy, and takes a light touch with the chocolate. We suggest pairing it with milk.

A Valerie chocolate chip cookie.

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Valerie Echo Park

Valerie is tucked into a cozy nook of Echo Park businesses set away from the bustle of Sunset Blvd. This weekend’s crawl features the Durango cookie, which our tasters describe as quite sweet (it uses milk chocolate) and nutty. This cookie will test your thoughts on texture; personally, I liked how the toasted almonds contributed to it. We also thought it might work well as a blondie.

A Milkfarm chocolate chip cookie.

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Milkfarm

Milkfarm owner and pastry chef-turned-cheesemonger Leah Park says her cookie was the result of a lot of trial and error when the store opened in 2014.

“How to get the oven the right temperature, and what size cookie, then the chips to use — we even taste-tested salt,” Park said. “We literally had different salt that we put side by side, and we ate salt to see what kind of salt we wanted to use on the cookie.” (They now use Jacobsen's.)

And that effort shines through: Milkfarm was a hit with our tasters (and several other colleagues who managed to snag a piece) — crispy edges, ample salt, thick ("but it's not cakey"), and just the right amount of chocolate (Ghirardelli). I haven't been a regular at this shop, but thanks to this crawl, I suspect it will be a new favorite stop on the way to work.

Park suggested pairing the cookie with a versatile cheese, many of which are also available from Milkfarm.

A Modu black sesame dark chocolate chip cookie.

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Modu Cafe

I usually stroll Highland Park for the compact array of shops on York Blvd. stretching from Kumquat on the west end to The Hermosillo bar on the east end. But head a little farther east to reach Modu, a bright, spacious pastry shop featuring flavors popular in Korean cooking.

Their soft, black sesame dark chocolate cookie stood out to our tasters for how the sesame brings a nutty complement; it's not packed with chocolate, so our crew recommends taking big bites to guarantee you get the full range of flavor. Pair it with the first-rate Modu Latte.

You can hit all five stops in under an hour, but budget some extra time to walk around a bit and enjoy what else the neighborhoods offer.

Also, while this particular crawl has been in the works for quite some time, it inspired another option this weekend in West L.A.:

• Clementine, 1751 Ensley Avenue, Century City
• Fat + Flour, 11739 W. Washington Boulevard, Culver City
• Lei’d Cookies, 8588 Washington Boulevard, Culver City
• Petitgrain Boulangerie, 1209 Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica 
• The Very Best Cookie in the Whole Wide World, 2625 South Robertson Boulevard, Los Angeles

Reporters Julia Barajas and Elly Yu, and engagement producer Sabrina Sanchez, contributed to this story.

A brewery in Lincoln Heights is hosting bingo games with a Texas twist you’ve probably never played before.

It’s called, excuse our language, Chicken Shit Bingo. And the name says it all.

The game has become an annual tradition at Benny Boy Brewing on Daly Street. On a recent Sunday, spectators and players surround a wooden enclosure — think a ping-pong table but with a giant bingo board at the base and wire all around it — hooting and hollering and egging on a well-fed chicken in a handkerchief and tiny cowboy hat. (And yes, L.A. County Public Health is well aware.)

Gameplay is simple: you can put a bet on one of the 72 squares. If a chicken poops on your number, you get $100.

A bet will cost you $3. For another $2, you get a cup of chicken feed to coax the bird toward your coordinates.

Participants get their numbers for the next round of bingo.

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Kat Hanegraaf

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Benny Boy Brewing

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The backstory

The game originated at The Little Longhorn Saloon — formerly Ginny’s Longhorn Saloon — in Austin, Texas, decades ago.

That’s where Matt Farber, Benny Boy’s bingo MC, first played. When his cousin Benny Farber decided to open a brewery, Matt knew the chickens needed to make their Los Angeles debut.

“Ben and I both grew up on farms, so this kind of hit home for us,” said Matt, decked out in a Dolly Parton T-shirt and a palm leaf cowboy hat. “When [we were] brainstorming … events to do at Benny Boy Brewing, this was something that just kind of came up.”

“It seemed like a no-brainer,” Benny said.

Meet the chickens

The chickens are sourced from Future Foods Urban Farms, a small urban farmstead in Glassell Park. Chicken keeper Teresa Meza, who stands by the birds’ enclosure and (I like to imagine) hypes them up before their bingo debut, was immediately taken by the idea.

“I had never heard of [the game],” she said. “But I was immediately into it.”

The chickens get quiet time in the shade between rounds, and are kept separate from food and beverage service for everyone’s safety. Future Foods and other urban farm partners are experienced in chicken-handling, and follow standard animal care practices appropriate for backyard and farm environments. Beyond that, the mechanics behind the actual pooping are very simple.

“Chickens are extremely prolific poopers,” Meza said, gingerly placing a tiny cowboy hat on an enormous chicken named Sophie. “As long as they're well fed and well watered, they will be pooping. It’s probably at least once every 30 minutes.”

Chicken keeper Teresa Meza and Benny Boy co-founder Benny Farber hold two of the chickens participating in bingo.

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Benny Boy Brewing

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How it works

Proceeds from each bet go right back to the urban farm. Aside from bingo, the Future Foods chickens tend not to make public appearances, but for five years now, Meza and the birds have been at Benny Boy every month from March through August.

After you place your bets, you can browse booths of Western-themed art from local artists, chow down on some standout barbecue and, of course, sip on some of the brewery’s fantastic beers and ciders.

Each game day has a theme. For example, the most recent round of bingo on April 12 featured a Dolly Parton lookalike contest and line dancing lessons with The Honky Tonk Hunnies.

While the bingo games are seasonal, Benny Boy stays busy year-round. Between chili cookoffs, competitive cornhole and outdoor drawing sessions, there’s always something on the calendar. You’ll find pop-ups from some of L.A.’s favorite local restaurants.

Can’t visit? You can find Benny Boy beers and ciders on tap at more than 50 breweries and eateries throughout the city.

More than 30 teams will take their handmade cars through a custom downhill course of twisty turns and obstacles Saturday as the Red Bull Soapbox Race returns to Los Angeles for the first time in nearly a decade.

Teams from across the country were selected from hundreds of applicants to compete on creativity, design, showmanship, course navigation and time.

There are no engines allowed in this race — all soapboxes must be gravity-powered.

Fully-functioning brakes and steering are required, but almost every other aspect of the engineering and design is left up to the competitors’ imaginations. According to Red Bull, the soapbox should be an extension of its team, the wilder and more outrageous the better.

From real racers to a car made out of bicycle parts

Contestants take on the course at the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2025.

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The race includes competitors from across Southern California and beyond.

UCLA Bruin Racing, made up of the school’s Formula SAE Squad (which also design and race specialized cars), entered with its “Mk. 9 racer” soapbox that was originally an out of commission EV car.

Metro LA repurposed parts from some of the unclaimed bikes left behind on the transit system for its “carrot-colored” bus design (and yes, that is the agency’s nod to Tyler, the Creator’s song "Rah Tah Tah." IYKYK).

The Seagrave 13 team from Las Vegas is dedicating their soapbox to Pasadena first responders who battled last year’s Eaton Fire. They’re planning to donate the car to the L.A. County Fire Museum after the race.

Built on a patio

One of the homegrown teams trying their luck this year is made up of a group of renters and friends in Santa Monica and Victorville who built their “Runaway Hotdog Stand” soapbox on an apartment patio.

“The fact that we're able to do this shows that I mean anybody could do this, and honestly could do anything else,” Carlos Monson, captain of the Speedy Wiener team, told LAist.

The Speedy Wiener team drew their design inspiration from L.A.’s iconic hot dog carts, typically a small grill that serves bacon and veggie toppings outside concerts, sporting events and tourist attractions.

The Speedy Wiener team modeled their soapbox after L.A.'s iconic hotdog carts.

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“For us, luckily, a majority of them are Latino and we're like, you know what, this is actually a perfect opportunity because the whole team is Latino,” said Monson, who will also be driving the soapbox.

The group of friends, between 18 and 21 years of age, built most of their cherry-red car on Monson’s apartment patio under Victorville’s glaring sun.

The Speedy Wiener repurposed the base of an old, rickety go-kart frame for their "Runaway Hotdog Stand" soapbox.

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Courtesy Carlos Monson

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They repurposed the base using an old, rickety go-kart frame that Monson said took about an hour just to carry up the stairs and get through the front door.

They worked on the soapbox in between classes and shifts at work. The final touches include stamping their Speedy Wiener logo and adding a mock-menu to the frame. There’s also ketchup and mustard bottles with yellow and red streamers hanging from the nozzles and a rainbow umbrella over the wheel.

The team, made up of renters between 18 and 21 years old, built most of the soapbox on their captain's apartment patio in Victorville.

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Courtesy Carlos Monson

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For the car’s structure, Monson turned to a collection of cardboard boxes he had lying around after a recent move and attached the various pieces with zip ties.

“We'll be able to hopefully last when they make it down the race track,” he said.

Engineering students’ big break

Another entrant on Saturday is the Los Ingenieros, a group of mechanical engineering students from Cerritos College in Norwalk, who has taken inspiration from the team’s Hispanic heritage and Los Angeles culture.

Their car is lucha libre-themed with rails modeled after a wrestling ring and the driver donning a muscle suit and mask.

The red, white and green colors represent the Mexican flag and features Chicano-style pinstriping from L.A.’s lowriders, as well as some Aztec patterns.

The Los Ingenieros team is made up of a group of mechanical engineering students from Cerritos College.

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Courtesy Ruben Orozco

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“It's definitely going to be a powerful testimony to our culture,” said Ruben Orozco, a Los Ingenieros member from La Mirada.

The team never expected to be picked for the race, and Orozco said the invitation has been “mind-blowing” and “surreal.”

Arelie Marquez, another member from Long Beach, told LAist she sketched the design for the modified go-kart frame before the team chopped the wheels, boosted the back axle and added suspension. While some of the students drew up blueprints on engineering computer software, Marquez used her welding experience to help mount the brackets — all in Orozco’s backyard.

As a community college student, Orozco said he’s felt like he’s missed out on opportunities to showcase their knowledge and innovations compared to students in the Cal State or UC system, but the Red Bull Soapbox Race has helped shed that notion.

“Not only has it been reassuring to myself, but also we've used it as a platform to kind of show others in STEM, in community colleges, that you could do crazy things as a student,” he said.

And yes, the team is already highlighting the unique engineering experience on their resumes, according to Gabriel Ramirez, a Compton resident and another member along with his twin brother, Hector.

Their next challenge? Cramming for finals next week.