Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 2, No. 51 - December 17, 2020
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................7
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Food.......................................7
Hawthorne............................3
Huber’s Hiccups..................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals............................. 2,5,6
Pets........................................8
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Sunny
66˚/47˚
Saturday
Sunny
67˚/48˚
Sunday
Sunny
71˚/48˚
Lawndale Tribune
AND lAwNDAle News
Hawthorne Press Tribune
Featuring the Weekly Newspapers of Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale
Aqua Pacific Gives Support to
South Bay Frontline Workers
The support continues to pour in as we encounter another round of COVID19’s wrath during the holidays. In uncertain times like these, we continue the fight together to treat, cure and save those in need
of care. The frontline professionals thank Aqua Pacific for their donation and appreciate their generosity. Photo courtesy Centinela Hospital Medical Center.
Restaurateur Krieger Tries to Keep
His Bars Afloat in the Hospitality Game
By Duane Plank
Kristian Krieger, the co-owner of El Segundo
Main St. establishments the Tavern on Main
and Brewport Tap House, had spent a few
hours prior to our phone interview completing
his application for a financial grant from the
County of Los Angeles, hoping to receive
government funding to augment his efforts
to stay in business through the “Keep LA
Dining” program.
The recent shutdown of bars and restaurants
in L.A. County, again, has not been all
that appreciated by business owners, who
are being driven out of business after some
of them spent precious dollars to adhere to
the new outside dining protocols that were
just rescinded. Or by the restaurant and bar
employees who have been jettisoned, again,
and await the receipt of their unemployment
money.
Wandering around town on my daily stroll,
I took note of a whiteboard post on a nowshuttered
Richmond St. bar with a spacious
“Patio” in the back, which may have summed
up the feelings of many in the California
hospitality industry. Scribbled in large letters
on the board: “Closed.” Underneath the
closed notation, in much smaller letters, were
management’s Holiday greetings to a couple
of California politicians. “(Expletive) you,
Newsom/Garcetti.” You can use your imagination
to discern what the “expletive” was.
While hoping to receive the L.A. County
dining grant, which is capped at $30,000,
Krieger said that the application process,
and the hoops to jump through, were trying.
He said that the initial window to apply for
the grant was at midnight, “why start it at
midnight?” a timing he said was “mean and
stupid.” After initially trying to apply for the
grant, four hours later, before the sun came
up, he was stymied, with all his entered
information wiped-out. The powers-that-be
had underestimated the amount of COVIDweary
bar and restaurant owners who would
apply for the cash, and the website crashed.
A Philadelphia-area native, Krieger, who
has co-owned the Tavern since 2002, and
Brewport since April of 2017, relocated to
Hacienda Heights at the age of five when his
mother and stepfather moved to California.
After completing high school, Krieger said
that his mother and stepfather planned to
return to Pennsylvania, an East Coast journey
he said was of no interest to him.
“They pretty much ditched me,” he said.
“So, I said, ’bye’, I am good here.” He ended
up attending college at UCLA, where he
spent his five years in Westwood ensconced
in the cozy confines of fraternity row, living
the life of a Greek God.
It was while attending UCLA that Krieger
became intrigued with the possibilities of
owning a bar/restaurant. During his collegiate
years, he promoted a one-day-a-week college
night at a Westside bar and distributed
open during the pandemic (Hennessy’s has
currently fully closed their three South Bay
stores at this point), Krieger said that it is
somewhat a roll-of-the-dice when deciding to
go full shutdown or try to subsist on takeout
and delivery until the hospitality industry
returns to a semblance of normalcy.
He noted that the shutdowns’ timing has
been more impactful at Brewport, where a
spacious store remodel was completed a year
ago, and the necessities for the outdoor dining
option had been added in the lot behind
the store. “The Tavern is doing better than
Brewport,” he said.
Through all the turmoil, Krieger gives high
praise to the City of El Segundo’s leaders,
who have done whatever possible to help
the bar/restaurant owners and employees.
“The City of El Segundo has been great
from the get-go,” he said, once the pandemic
started affecting bars and restaurants in March.
Krieger has worked with the Chamber of
Commerce and local restaurateurs to develop
the Gundo-to-Go program and to secure the
outside dining barricades that were set up on
local thoroughfares.
Pat Cox, who co-manages and partners
with Krieger in running Brewport, has
known Krieger for about 15 years. Cox said
he felt confident in entering into a business
relationship with Krieger “because he seemed
to have a (positive) demeanor with customers,”
a tabloid publication to colleges from Long
Beach to the Valley that noted the myriad
opportunities for college students to engage
in the vagaries of alcohol-fueled collegiate
after-hours shenanigans.
Krieger then toiled for a few restaurant
chains that ended-up hightailing it out of
California. “I was the merchant of death,”
for businesses, Krieger said, noting his
employment with chains that had vanished.
During his tenure at Hennessy’s, Krieger
managed all three of the South Bay stores,
which led to the opening of the Tavern on
Main on April Fool’s Day, 2002. Krieger
said he liked the idea of debuting his new
venture on April 1 and that opening his own
place had “kind of been a goal for a while.”
As restaurants and bars struggle to stay See Krieger, page 4
also noting Krieger’s interaction with the
community, and possessing a “good pulse of
what is going on in town.” Cox said Krieger
is able to stay “grounded,” focusing on the
needs of both his customers and employees.
“He is generous with his time and his passion
for doing the right thing,” Cox said.
The current general manager of the Tavern
on Main is Xavier Flamenco, who has