“On the simple end, it could just be full of documents or a final cash deposit. On the higher end, who knows, it could be full of guns or jewelry.”
That’s Hal Mooney, the owner of the newly opened Mooney’s Pizza Tavern in Long Beach, talking about an 18-inch, square-shaped locked metal safe that he discovered in the walls of the restaurant’s office during construction last year. The safe, by Mooney’s estimation, weighs more than 100 pounds and takes two people to lift.
“I really have no context for the safe, but it’s been here for at least 30 years, and probably more like 60 years,” Mooney says. “There are drill marks on it, so you can see people have tried to open it, but no one’s been successful. It’s too heavy to shake.”
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The exterior of Mooney’s Pizza Tavern in Long Beach, Calif.
Courtesy of Mooney’s Pizza Tavern
The pub-style dining room at Mooney’s Pizza Tavern in Long Beach, Calif.
Courtesy of Mooney’s Pizza Tavern
Soon, though, the contents (or, perhaps, the lack thereof) will be discovered: On Sunday, May 3, Mooney’s is having a safe-opening party with the help of “professional safe openers” Mooney found online. Guests can purchase raffle tickets for $5 for a chance to win the contents of the safe — and should it be empty, they’ll win free pizza for a year. It’s a smart marketing tool for the new pizzeria, and hopefully a moneymaker, too. All proceeds from the raffle will be donated to Casa Youth Shelter, a local nonprofit that provides emergency temporary shelter for youth ages 12 to 17 who are homeless, abused or in crisis.
Mooney, a certified cicerone (beer sommelier) who also ran a pizza pop-up named Crumb, used to run beer tours around Los Angeles and Orange County through his company LA Beer Hop with his wife Cindy, also a cicerone. The couple shifted to online beer sales during the pandemic but decided to pursue a new dream as sales began to fall off.
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“I could see the writing on the wall three years ago that it was winding down, so I signed one more two-year lease on the warehouse where we were shipping beer out of,” Mooney says. “I would pass by this restaurant all the time. It had been empty for six years before we signed the lease.”
A close-up shot of the locked safe found in the walls of Mooney’s Pizza Tavern in Long Beach, Calif.
Courtesy of Mooney’s Pizza Tavern
Starting in January 2025, Mooney embarked on a six-month permitting and planning process. During the construction of the restaurant, the Mooneys raised more than $100,000 to help cover costs, all while sharing the day-to-day minutiae of opening a restaurant to their growing social media fanbase.
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They opened the 5,200-square-foot, 175-seat restaurant in a former diner on February 27 as an old-school sit-down pizza pub, complete with curved green booths and custom-designed Tiffany-style stained-glass pendant lamps. The kitchen makes both classic round and 14-inch pan pizzas topped with everything from pepperoni to fried eggplant with garlic confit.
A classic round pizza and a cheeseburger at Mooney’s Pizza Tavern in Long Beach, Calif.
Courtesy of Mooney’s Pizza Tavern
A custom-made Tiffany-style stained-glass lamp at Mooney’s Pizza Tavern.
Courtesy of Mooney’s Pizza Tavern
“The menu, if anything, is very Midwestern,” Mooney, who’s originally from Illinois, says. “The restaurant is nostalgic to no particular era.”
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Mooney’s also serves “squeakers” (fried Wisconsin cheese curds), wings and frozen custard that can be made “fancy” (topped with olive oil and sea salt) or “fun” (topped with sprinkles). Given the couple’s background in the beverage industry, Mooney also compiled 20 craft beers to serve on tap and has launched a “bucket list beer” program featuring 100 beers to try before you die, which rotate regularly.
According to Mooney, the reception from the Long Beach community over the past several weeks has been “nothing short of incredible.”
“We have a line outside daily to get in,” he says.
Cindy and Hal Mooney of Hal’s Pizza Tavern with their two children.
Courtesy of Mooney’s Pizza Tavern
Mooney is looking forward to Sunday’s big reveal, which will be livestreamed on Instagram and will also launch the restaurant’s regular weekend hours.
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“Chances are, there’s nothing inside of the safe, but it’s just a way for us to use it to have some fun,” Mooney says.
Mooney’s Pizza Tavern, 8105 E. Wardlow Road, Long Beach. Open daily, 4-11 p.m. Starting May 3, Saturday and Sunday hours will be 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.