"Meet me at Luna in Bixby Village" can now send two people to two different doors. Since June 2026, the shopping center at 7th Street and Bellflower Boulevard has had two restaurants with that name. One is a chain that opened in the new building where the CVS used to be. The other is an owner-run Mexican-fusion restaurant that opened in April 2025, more than a year before the last new tenant opened.
That name clash is a handy way into the whole plaza. The rebuild filled the plaza's last gap. Taken together, the four new counters and the older storefronts make Bixby Village Plaza a place a Park Estates household can eat at from morning coffee to late dessert. The most personal cooking in the lineup is still in the older storefronts.
From Pharmacy to Four Counters, in Three Years
The rebuild took a while, and the order things happened in shows why the plaza feels finished now when it didn't a year ago.
- September 2023. Westar Associates, which owns the plaza, announced it would tear down the former CVS and put up a smaller building with four spaces.
- 2023 into early 2024. The Long Beach Post reported that the CVS closed in 2023 and the building was gone by early 2024.
- April 2025. Luna Bistro & Café opened in the older part of the plaza.
- December 2025. HiroNori Craft Ramen opened its second Long Beach location at 5718 E. 7th St., and the four new tenants were announced.
- March 25, 2026. Westar said construction was complete and the spaces had been handed to tenants for their interior buildouts.
- May 27 and May 29, 2026. The plaza posted "now open" notices for Urbane Café and then California Fish Grill.
- June 11, 2026. Luna Grill officially opened.
- July 15, 2026. The Melt opened. Westar called it the final tenant in the new building and said its opening completed the redevelopment.
Back in February, the Long Beach Post expected the openings to run "later this summer and into the fall." They came sooner than that. By mid-July, all four counters were serving, so fall 2026 is the first season with the full lineup in place.
Which Luna Is Which
Longbeachize writer Brian Addison saw the mix-up coming before Luna Grill even opened. In his December 2025 report, he wrote that "there will now be two Lunas in the complex," and pointed readers to Luna Bistro & Café as "the true local spot."
| Luna Bistro & Café | Luna Grill | |
|---|---|---|
| Opened at the plaza | April 2025 | June 11, 2026 |
| Where | Older storefront row, space E-5 on the plaza roster | The new building on the former CVS site, space A-3 |
| Who runs it | Owner-restaurateur Christian Alvarez | A multi-location restaurant brand |
| Kitchen | Mexican fusion with Californian, Italian and bar-food influences | The brand's standard menu |
| Order first | Ceviche Asiatico, steak al Sur, carnitas | Whatever suits a quick lunch |
Alvarez runs close to ten restaurants, and this is the second Luna. The first is in Bakersfield. Longbeachize's April 2025 profile reports that he redid the space in a month and a half, using furniture and tile he designed with a company in Tototlán, Jalisco, and that live music plays during peak hours.
The menu draws on his own background. The ceviche Asiatico started when he added sashimi to his mother's ceviche, and the result is a ponzu base with sesame, soy and serrano. The enchilada uses a family recipe from Michoacán. Addison recommends the steak al Sur, the carnitas tradicional and the ceviche, and he also mentions that the kitchen keeps an arbol-based salsa for its own staff that diners can ask for.
The Press-Telegram's October 2025 review described the place as eclectic Californian, with Mexican, Italian and American bar-food influences. It covered the tacos, sliders, wings and garlic-cream-sauce dishes, plus coffee drinks flavored like dessert cereal.
So the two Lunas aren't really competing. Luna Grill is a reliable counter for a weekday lunch. Luna Bistro is where you'd book a birthday dinner, and Westar's September 2026 tenant roster still lists both.
What the Older Storefronts Already Had
The new building holds four of the plaza's food tenants. On Westar's September 2026 roster, the older rows hold more than a dozen.
Ramen. HiroNori Craft Ramen started in Irvine, and Longbeachize reports that it held California Michelin Guide mentions for six years before the 2024 guide. Its first Long Beach shop is in Bixby Knolls. The Bixby Village location brought the same 24-hour pork-bone broths and scratch-made noodles to the east side, and the menu includes tonkotsu, shoyu with soy-braised chashu, and a vegan sesame-miso bowl.
Borneo cooking. Uncle Fung Borneo Eatery is run by chef-owner Phin F. Then and serves Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean food with roots in Borneo. A Long Beach Post feature highlighted the laksa mee, ayam goreng penyet, roti prata and gado gado. The restaurant is still on the 2026 roster.
Vietnamese and boba. Hiccups is a Long Beach brand that started at the Traffic Circle. The Long Beach Post reported that its Bixby Village location opened at the end of May 2024 in the former Pho & Crawfish space, serving pho, pad thai, garlic noodles, boba drinks and its own house coffee.
Rolled tacos. Blue Burro's own menu page lists Mexican street food, and the signature is "Blue's Famous Rolled Tacos," topped with shrimp, carne asada and a special sauce.
The rest of the roster includes Sapporo Sushi, Ike's Love & Sandwiches, L&L Hawaiian BBQ, East Coast Bagels, Trung Nguyen E-Coffee, Cha For Tea and Afters Ice Cream.
One Day, One Parking Lot
Here's how a full day at the plaza could go, using only businesses on the current roster.
- Morning: Bagels at East Coast Bagels, or a Vietnamese coffee from Trung Nguyen E-Coffee, which is in the plaza directory with posted weekly hours.
- Midday: One of the four new counters in the former CVS building, depending on the craving: California Fish Grill, Urbane Café, Luna Grill or The Melt. Westar's announcement for The Melt lists grilled cheese, Angus burgers, crispy chicken sandwiches, salads and hand-spun milkshakes.
- Afternoon: A boba from Hiccups or Cha For Tea.
- Dinner: Ceviche Asiatico and carnitas at Luna Bistro & Café, a tonkotsu bowl at HiroNori, or laksa at Uncle Fung.
- After: A scoop at Afters Ice Cream.
That's a dozen-plus food stops in a single lot, and Target is still the anchor on Westar's roster. Everything that changed at this corner in 2026 was food.
If you've been wondering how a finished corner like 7th and Bellflower affects the value of your home a few minutes away, Cynthia Voss and Nathan Walter can walk you through what has sold nearby and what that means for your street. Request a Free Home Valuation, and bring your Luna order. We'd like to hear which one you picked.
