By Sonny Tapia
[aesop_gallery id=”71016″ revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]
The Daybreak Night Market showcased food, music, scenery and Long Beach State alumni in the parking lot adjacent to the Berth 55 restaurant on Sept. 17th.
One of the visitor hot spots was the Taste of the Pacific, despite the market being considered small by some of the vendors.
It featured its best seller for the night, lumpias. Lumpias are fried spring rolls that can be filled with pork along with other vegetables.
“The lumpias are always good from this place, especially since this isn’t my first time ordering from them,” Jake Chou said.
Some of the other vendors sold ube desserts and clothing. Benevolent Designs was one of the vendors that featured t-shirts and canvas bags.
The brand was started by Araceli Rodriguez, a CSULB graduate from 2019. Rodriguez majored in business and decided to start her own business in 2020.
Her brand is designed with upcycled materials and designs that she alters herself with Adobe software.
“I want to help make the world a little better, which is why I donate 10% of my profits to organizations that support humanitarian efforts,” Rodriguez said. “This is my second collection and I really want to keep my designs affordable for people.”
This was her first night market as a vendor and plans on attending more in the future.
Ube Bread Box was another vendor that specialized in ube bread stuffed with different types of fillings. One of its most popular breads was the ube bread stuffed with Nutella.
“We usually make about 140 loaves for an event this size and that’s exactly what we did,” Jezra Roque said.
The company was at another night market the previous night in downtown Los Angeles and sold all 140 loaves within the first four hours.
Another CSULB alumni was from Cupcake Inn. Joelle Ordonez graduated from Long Beach State in 1998 where she said that she met her husband.
The brand featured most of her baked goods, but not all of them. “Oh, this is not everything by any means because I make ube cheesecake, bread, flour and regular full-sized cakes,” Ordonez said.
She continued by mentioning that one of her biggest orders was for 300 cupcakes. She said that it was not too difficult to travel with all of them, but there is always a little worry.
Even people from different continents came to show off their business including Geoffry Ughuv from Ghana.
“The booth is really my daughter’s, but the wood carvings are mine that I do by hand. I run a furniture store in Palos Verdes,” Ughuv said.
Their booth had traditional African clothing and jewelry made by his daughter, Sonya. He said that he travels back and forth to Ghana twice a month.
“This venue is smaller than we are used to, but I like it because, in the end, business is business,” Ughuv said.
