IO by Playground

220 East 4th St.
playgrounddtsa.com

Since debuting in November 2011, Playground has firmly established itself at the forefront of the Orange County dining scene, earning legions of followers in the process. As sharp as Chef Jason Quinn's cooking is, though, there was just something more that he wanted. He dreamed of a place where he could truly celebrate his obsessively-sourced, often times scarce ingredients, an intimate venue where the bounds of cost, complexity, and time go out the window. His vision has been realized in the form of IO, an invitation-only dining series held sporadically at 2.0, a "culinary theater" of sorts situated right next door to the main restaurant (the space is also used for private dinners, pop-ups, cooking classes, and other special events). Inside, you'll find an intimate room housing 17 seats surrounding a well-equipped exhibition kitchen. Read More...

Frida Theatre

305 East 4th St.
fb.com/lbcinematheque

[East End] saw what the Cinematheque was and is doing in Long Beach and has now provided them the opportunity to run and program a full-time arthouse cinema—which truly equates to any film geek's dream. The permanent space--inside what is now the Fiesta Twin in Downtown Santa Ana--permits the nonprofit to run student films, LGBT fare, films that lack distributors or have micro-budget, and other pieces of the cinematic spectrum that may have otherwise never met a wall to be shown on outside of computer and television screens. And come September, the Cinematheque's permanent location—two screens with some 650 seats between them—will be offering daily servings of cinematic goodness on top of its local, Long Beach mobile programming.
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El Mercado

Coming Fall 2013

The idea is to have a dozen small-scale restaurants that in a Mexican mercado would be called fondas, as well as coffee, beer, and wine. There will be kitchens for smaller-scale projects, like incubators for people whose business models are too large for the cottage food law but too small for traditional commercial kitchens; a gluten-free kitchen and a confectionary kitchen. The market part will emphasize local artisans, including a butcher shop to be run by Michael Puglisi, a whole-animal butcher who moved West from Boston's Butchershop and rose from in-house butcher to sous chef at Bouchon in Beverly Hills. Much of the food for sale will come from the commercial kitchens, and there will be a demo space as well. Read More...

Blends

200 East 4th St.
blendsus.com

9 years ago we opened our first location in the heart of Costa Mesa. Before then it was a different time, sneaker boutiques weren’t a term just yet. For basketball shoes you would check out Footlocker. For skate shoes you would check out Niketown etc. It’s 2012 now and we now have a stores in San Diego and also Downtown LA. Orange County is where we started where our first store is. Downtown Santa Ana in the past few years has grown into a very exciting city. A lot of good energy has been flowing through with new businesses coming in making a lot of noise and we had to be a part of it. We are proud to announce our 4th BLENDS location in the heart of Downtown Santa Ana. We are on 4th St. which is historically the main street of Santa Ana. Please come check us out.