{"id":222837,"date":"2026-03-16T23:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/222837\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T23:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:54:12","slug":"long-beach-sandwich-co-reopens-after-christmastime-kitchen-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/222837\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Sandwich Co. reopens after Christmastime kitchen fire"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n \"\" <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels normal again. It feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the sense of relief from Long Beach Sandwich Company owner Dan Monteforte, whose popular West Beech Street deli has reopened two and a half months after a kitchen fire forced it to close.<\/p>\n

The neighborhood sandwich shop had been shuttered since Dec. 21, when a fire broke out on a stovetop during the middle of the lunch rush.<\/p>\n

Monteforte said the flames caused significant damage before the Long Beach Fire Department was able to extinguish them, leaving the restaurant in need of a full kitchen rebuild before it could welcome customers back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to renovate the whole thing, rip out the kitchen, soup to nuts,\u201d Monteforte told Greater Long Island. \u201cThankfully no one was injured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monteforte said one of his biggest concerns during the closure was the impact on his employees, who were suddenly out of work during the holiday season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt terrible for my staff,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing out of work for that long, especially around Christmas, isn\u2019t easy. I did what I could to take care of them, but the community really rallied for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said a nearby bar helped raise some much-needed cash for the staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cA bar down the block, Shines, put out a tip cup and they raised a couple thousand dollars for my crew,\u201d Monteforte said. \u201cThere is nothing like the people of Long Beach. The West End community is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the kitchen was rebuilt, Monteforte said he used the downtime to make a few small improvements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cleaned up the place and made a couple of minor tweaks to the menu, but not much,\u201d he said. \u201cWe wanted everyone to come back and feel at home again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Since reopening Saturday, owner Dan Monteforte said the response from customers has been overwhelmingly positive. (Credit: GLI\/Andrew Rapport)<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone keeps coming in and saying, \u2018We are so happy you are back. We didn\u2019t know where else to go while you were gone,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On the first day back, Monteforte said he made a point of working the counter himself so he could personally welcome customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually I have people to do that, but I wanted to personally greet the community, say hello and let them know everything is back to normal,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just so happy we are finally back.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the spring, Long Beach Sandwich Company will be open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.<\/p>\n

\"\"Long Beach Sandwich Company reportedly opened in 2017 at 801 W Beech St. in Long Beach. (Credit: GLI\/Andrew Rappaport)<\/p>\n

Top: Dan Monteforte is all smiles, back behind the counter at Long Beach Sandwich Company. (Credit: GLI\/Andrew Rappaport)<\/p>\n

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Subscribe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt feels normal again. It feels good.\u201d That\u2019s the sense of relief from Long Beach Sandwich Company owner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132,101720],"class_list":["post-222837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-beach-sandwich-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}