Becoming Local Staples!

Big Al’s Pizzeria

From the creators of the iconic Maywood, California-based Big Al’s Pizzeria comes the restaurant’s second location, which officially opened to Old Towne customers in December.

Big Al’s Pizzeria, founded and operated by brothers Ali and Michael Chahine, serves pizza, wings and sandwiches that are all Halal certified, meaning the meat follows Islamic dietary laws.

Before becoming a founder in the restaurant industry, Ali owned a wholesale clothing business. As an entrepreneur and food lover, he decided to take the plunge and opened a meat market.

“The market was successful, but our friend owned a pizzeria for more than 20 years and planted the seed of an idea that we could create our original pizza shop,” says Michael. “We put a pizza oven in the meat market, and it started growing from there.”

Ali and Michael trained with their friend and spent three months developing and testing their own recipes. The menu was motivated by various international flavors, with a mix of Lebanese, Asian and Mexican-focused pizzas.

“Our menu draws inspiration from our travels, experiences and nationality overall,” says Michael. “Our Lebanese mom was always cooking for us growing up, and we took inspiration from her, too.”

Customers can choose from options like the carne asada pizza or the beef brisket sub or select a half-and-half style pizza to sample two of Big Al’s signature pizzas. The most popular item is the Lebanese garlic chicken pizza, topped with a homemade garlic sauce, shredded chicken breast and buttermilk ranch.

This spring, discover the latest additions to the Orange community. From Halal restaurant Big Al’s Pizzeria, to produce distribution non-profit Grow & Share, to community space Living Mi Vida Loca, these new businesses are already becoming local staples. Read on for a closer look at what the establishments and their founders bring to the neighborhood.

“We call it a deconstructed version of a Lebanese chicken shawarma sandwich, and I had no idea it was going to be such a hit,” says Michael. “This pizza superseded my expectations.”

The rest of their menu turned out to be a hit too, and in 2015, Yelp crowned Big Al’s Pizzeria on its list of Top 100 U.S. Places to Eat. Michael says he and his brother never imagined their food would be so well-known and loved.

“We’re self-taught chefs creating pizza recipes, and suddenly, we have award-winning dishes,” says Michael. “It made me realize that if you have a passion for something, you can go far.”

After making Yelp’s list again in 2018, the Chahines started considering expanding and opening a new location. But then the pandemic hit, and they put their plans on hold.

“As soon as we felt everything was picking up again, we hired a real estate agent and found the Old Towne location,” says Ali. “It was the perfect location, and we already had many existing customers in Orange County. The community has been so welcoming and great so far.”

Grow & Share

Once known for its lush groves of citrus trees, the city of Orange hosts many homes abundant with fruit and, often, a lack of use. One family is working to make the community more fruitful for everyone through Grow & Share, a non-profit that redistributes excess fruit to those in need.

Established last year by Orange native Beth Huber and her family, Grow & Share gathers locally grown produce and partners with organizations to share the fruit with underserved communities.

“I’ve always volunteered in the community, but I wanted to start something myself, and my family has these citrus trees that go crazy with fruit each year,” says Beth. “I did a little research, and it turned out there was a pretty strong need for something like this in the area.”

Beth and her family started the operation by picking their own leftover fruit and calling on social media to see if anyone had excess citrus they could grab. They quickly connected with dozens of neighbors eager to share citrus, persimmons and avocados, and today, Grow & Share collects between 300-600 pounds of produce each weekend.

“All of the produce we pick comes from within Orange County, mostly in Orange and Santa Ana,” says Beth. “Our main goal is to serve local residents in need.”

Though the Grow & Share team has already had a tremen- dous impact, Beth aims to keep the organization local and familyfocused.

“It’s a whole family affair,” she says. “It’s mostly just my parents, siblings and our significant others doing the picking and organizing.”

Beth’s father, Shane Huber, leads most of the manual picking and operations portions of the non-profit. He and the rest of his

The Grow & Share team, including produce. Beth and her parents, Shane and Susie, all grew up in Orange. They feel a strong sense of connection to the city that drives them to continue the work they do. family have full-time jobs, but they spend hours each week coordinating, picking and donating hundreds of pounds of produce.

“It got to the point where picking and dropping fruit off twice a week became routine,” says Shane. “This is so incredibly important to the community, but it’s straightforward and easy for us to do.”

Through Grow & Share, the Hubers are most proud of how they come together as a family every weekend to donate their time and energy to the community and the environment.

“Not only are we able to feed people with the fruit that gets picked, but there’s an environmental impact to this as well,” says Beth. “When fallen fruit lays on the ground, it releases methane gasses into the environment. The more fruit we can redistribute, the better, and it has a dual impact on the health and sustainability of our community.”

Visit GrowAndShareOC .org for more details on how to donate produce, time or funds.

Living Mi Vida Loca

Living Mi Vida Loca, an award-winning Orange County guide and website, began as a lifestyle blog in 2009 by Founder Pattie Cordova, but the company recently brought its online community together into the physical world through a new coworking and events space.

The new communal space, LMVL.club, opened in Old Towne in January and serves as a hub for coworking, events, workshops, and more. During the workday, the location offers designated workspaces for anyone to work and collaborate.

“In the evenings and weekends, the space is open for people to use for events and workshops,” says Cordova. “We’ve found that small businesses have all these ideas and plans they want to do but don’t have the space or capital for it. We want to provide that space for them.”

Cordova originally founded Living Mi Vida Loca as a personal blog but quickly expanded her content to product reviews and started working with big brands like Walt Disney World and Ford. During the pandemic, she rebranded the site into what it is today: a guide for fun things to see, eat and do in Orange County.

“We wanted people to see what was possible in Orange County,” says Cordova. “That’s how the space came about, because we wanted to be a resource for local businesses and the community, especially with the isolation the pandemic brought.”

After a few years of running the blog and a social media management company, Cordova brought in two friends, Belinda Espinoza and Stephanie Robledo, to help grow Living Mi Vida Loca. Espinoza, a digital content creator at Living Mi Vida Loca, started writing blog posts and covering press events almost 10 years ago.

“The work I do has become so much more than I originally thought it would be,” says Espinoza. “Now we have a team and are always bouncing ideas off each other. People see how much we love what we do and how hard we work, and it shows.”

Cordova and her team are most proud of their work to create a heightened sense of community through the event space, guides and local calendars, especially within the Latino community.

“We wanted to give the Latino community access to things they maybe didn’t know about before, like street fairs, and specifically for first-generation families,” she says.

Beyond creating an event directory and an in-person space, Living Mi Vida Loca bridges businesses and the local community, connecting them with experiences they may have otherwise missed.

“With our platform, we’re able to give businesses a broader audience,” she says. “we also introduce community members to new experiences they never would’ve known about before, especially if they felt like they had to know somebody to get in.” •