The Belmont Shore Car Show will return for its 34th year from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13.
Second Street will close in the early morning and will reopen about 4 p.m. The show cars will arrive beginning at 6 p.m.
There will be a beer garden on Nieto Avenue, on the south side of Second Street and a Thrifty Ice Cream truck serving the squared-off shaped scoops we all remember, said organizer JP Zentgraf. Skate Dogs will also be there.
Visitors enjoy the annual Belmont Shore Car Show, one of the largest one-day classic car shows on the West Coast, on Sunday, September 7, 2025. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
A 1933 Ford Alloway Speedstar is shown at the annual Belmont Shore Car Show, one of the largest one-day classic car shows on the West Coast, on Sunday, September 7, 2025. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Show Caption
1 of 2
Visitors enjoy the annual Belmont Shore Car Show, one of the largest one-day classic car shows on the West Coast, on Sunday, September 7, 2025. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
The car show will also feature more than 55 vendors, including Hot Wheels racing, and more than 650 vehicles, including some exotics.
This is the only show that has 14 full blocks of cars on display and is considered the largest car show on the West Coast, Zentgraf said. It’s free to view and more than 20,000 spectators are expected.
For more information, go to belmontshorecarshow.com.
Sheldrake Coffee’s 50th anniversary
Sheldrake Coffee Roasting — Belmont Shore’s specialty coffeehouse, which has called Second Street home long before Starbucks — is celebrating five decades of fresh roasted brew. The celebration will take place at the shop, 4605 Second St., from 5 to 7 p.m. Sept. 30.
Owner Mike Sheldrake started working for the Sheldrake brothers in 1963 (same last name, but not related). The brothers owned some Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises, including the KFC where the Win-Dow burger shack is now located, and later opened Polly’s Pies.
In the 1970s, the brothers tasked Mike Sheldrake with researching specialty coffee for their restaurants, as well as for a standalone shop. Polly’s Gourmet Coffee opened in 1976 with Mike leading the way.
Just three years later, Mike was able to purchase a vintage (1929) Probat roaster. The smell of coffee beans roasting has a distinctive aroma that draws coffee lovers to the shop. The roasting process became so popular that he also roasts fresh peanuts.
Mike Sheldrake managed the shop until 1989, when he purchased the business from Polly’s Pies. In 2020, the official name changed to Sheldrake Coffee Roasting.
For more information, go to sheldrakecoffeeroasting.com.
Hof’s Hut’s 75th anniversary
Hof’s Hut began in the 1940s when Harold Hofman operated a beach burger stand at Fifth Place in Long Beach, serving “Hofburgers” for 15 cents.
In 1947, Harold Hofman married Donna, and to create a year-round business, they opened the first Hof’s Hut in Belmont Shore on Sept. 16, 1951 — the same day their son, Craig, was born. Over the decades, Hof’s Hut became known for signature items like Hofburgers, chili, onion rings, homemade pies and my favorite — “those potatoes.”
The restaurant’s 75th anniversary event will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, at the Seal Beach location, 12489 Seal Beach Blvd., according to the Hof’s Hut website. The day will feature live music, prize giveaways, photo opportunities and an anniversary memory book giveaway.
Special offers will be available at all Hof’s Hut locations including, a $7.50 Hofburger (with fries, coleslaw or fresh fruit) for dine-in guests from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday. A special bonus card good for one free individual pie with a $10 purchase will be valid from Sept. 17 to Oct. 31.
For more information, go to hofshut.com.
Long Beach Restaurant Society
The members of the Long Beach Restaurant Society pose for a photograph in 1976. (Photo courtesy of John Faber)
An informal reunion of some of the founders of the Long Beach Restaurant Society — a brain trust of restaurateurs in the 1970s that helped pave the way to delight Long Beach foodies today — took place on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
Led by John Faber, the Long Beach Restaurant Society was established in 1976 and was made up of visionary restaurant owners that saw value in working together.
It is especially rewarding to know that the Grunion Gazette’s own John Blowitz was one of those people and that Faber considered this weekly paper’s role in the success of local eateries.
Faber owned Fiddlers Three and developed the concept of McKenna’s Creek in 1977.
McKenna’s was located in the Market Place shopping center, east of Pacific Coast Highway and just south of Westminster Avenue. It was an authentic replica of a Kentucky grist mill of the 1800s.
Faber and his execs purchased three whisky vats from the old southern distillery where bourbon was stored right after the Civil War, according to a review by the Press Telegram’s Tedd Thomey. Those whisky vats became the restaurant’s flooring. A story on the back of the restaurant’s menus says great men “such as McKenna and many forgotten others, would hold meetings by the ‘creek,’ which supplied the cooling effect on the hot coils of the stills.”
The restaurant was a free-standing board building with a meandering creek. When you cross the bridge and walk through the front door, the first thing you saw was a big copper still. After that, your eye was fascinated with 1,001 other nostalgic items, stacked artistically all over the place.
In future columns, with the help of LBFS alums like Sam King, Ron Hodges and Faber, I plan to share some of the back stories of Long Beach’s trailblazers of dining.