A new all-day restaurant in Redondo Beach, Suburbia is a fresh take on your favorite neighborhood eatery
Written by Virginia Fay | Photography Courtesy of Paul Jonason
Clean, crisp and eminently welcoming—all the things you wish your own kitchen could be, Suburbia manages to encapsulate. A new concept from Blackhouse Hospitality’s Jed Sanford and Tin Vuong, the restaurant seeks to combine the lessons they’ve learned from their standout restaurants across the L.A. area, from chophouse Steak & Whisky to farm-to-table Abigaile, to create the perfect blend of homey and inventive.
A South Bay native, Sanford knew Redondo Beach was the perfect community to host Suburbia.
“I envisioned Suburbia as our take on the modern-day neighborhood eatery—a place one can visit multiple times a week for various meal segments. I’ve always been interested in doing a concept close to home and I wanted to experiment with an all-day food-forward restaurant in the area,” he explains. Acknowledging the loaded connotation of a word like suburbia, Sanford aimed for a playful take on the idea by branding the restaurant as such: “I enjoyed the feeling of familiarity and nostalgia juxtaposed with the feeling of wanting to revolt against a system.
Perhaps in some ways it’s an exercise in exploring how people think about a neighborhood restaurant. It’s fun.” And fun Suburbia is, with its innovative menu unfolding against a backdrop of neutrals, muted blues, grays and copper fixtures.
Options include lunch, dinner and weekend brunch; beverages include cocktails with tongue-in-cheek names like Frankie Says Relapse and Rye Thai. As someone who describes his own favorite restaurants as “places where you feel that [they] truly care about the food they serve,” Sanford endeavors to ensure Suburbia’s menu is both familiar, in keeping with the theme, and surprising. 
“I have a lot of respect for folks that try new things and innovate,” he offers. “It takes a lot of guts and you can feel the hones. At the same time, I like restaurants that understand hospitality and have a strong customer focus. With Suburbia, it is an exercise in finding the right mix of innovation and hospitality.”
Lunch and dinner items like Lebanese Spiced Ground Lamb & Hummus with za’atar naan and breakfast choices including Huevos Rancheros with house pork chili mean you’ll be licking your lips all the way to the dessert menu, which includes everything from a Death by Chocolate Cake (enough said) to a decadent Lemon Blueberry Merengue Torte with shaved pistachio and blueberry compote.
By drawing on their combined years of restaurant experience and the sentiment of coming home, both literally and figuratively, to create Suburbia, Sanford and Vuong have developed a modern restaurant that effortlessly blends a relaxed feel with cutting-edge gastronomy. “In some ways this is the most and least progressive of our concepts at the same time,” Sanford says. “We always like the idea of combining something old with the new, and really just aspired to create a comfortable, approachable space that can be enjoyed around the clock.”