Walk the Long Beach boardwalk this month and you'll pass a taco stand that opened three weeks ago, a health food counter tucked next to a walk-in medical clinic, and a café that's been quietly waiting since last November to hear back from Albany. None of that sounds like a turning point. But on April 7, the Long Beach City Council voted unanimously to reverse a rule that had stood since 1986, and the way they wrote the new rule tells you more about this summer than any list of restaurant openings does.
Here's the part that gets flattened in the quick version of this story: the boardwalk itself did not go wet. You still cannot carry a drink onto the boards. You still cannot have a beer on the sand. What changed is narrower and, if you actually live here, more useful to understand: a business with a door that opens onto the boardwalk can now serve alcohol inside that door. The boardwalk stayed dry. The buildings facing it didn't have to.
What the Council Actually Voted On
City Manager Dan Creighton opened the April meeting by saying it plainly, twice, so nobody could walk away with the wrong idea. The ordinance changes would not allow alcohol sale or consumption on the boardwalk or the beach. What they would allow is for boardwalk-facing establishments to serve alcohol inside their own walls, alongside a second change removing the citywide cap on how long a bar counter can be and lifting a moratorium on new bar permits.
That distinction, inside the door versus outside on the boards, is the whole story. It's why Council President Brendan Finn kept repeating himself at the hearing: alcohol still isn't permitted on the boardwalk or the beach, and open containers still aren't either. More than 200 residents and business owners showed up to hash it out, and the meeting ran past three hours before the vote finally happened.
"If we all take a look outside, you can see the boardwalk. You can see it's a million-dollar view," resident Mike Murphy told the council. "I'm sober over 30 years. I would like to take my wife on the boardwalk for a ride at sunset, have a drink, I'll have a soda, she'll have a drink, and enjoy that million-dollar view."
That's the trade the council landed on. You get the drink at the table, not the drink in hand while you're walking.
Why 2017 Said No and 2026 Said Yes
A nearly identical proposal came before a different council in February 2017 and got voted down 4-1, with members at the time citing safety and liability concerns. This year's council was unanimous. What changed in nine years wasn't the ordinance language so much as the track record sitting right there on the boardwalk.
Corporation Counsel Greg Kalnitsky told the council that over the last 13 years, the zoning board had heard 18 applications from establishments looking to open or expand their bar space, and had approved every one of them. And then there's the Allegria Hotel, which has occupied a spot on the boardwalk since 2009 and has been serving alcohol on its own premises the entire time without the kind of incident that would have made this vote harder. Finn brought it up directly: the hotel has been in business since 2009, no problems, by his account a model for what the rest of the boardwalk could look like under the same rules.
That's the mechanism behind the unanimous vote. It wasn't a change of heart about risk. It was nine years of one property quietly proving the risk was manageable.
What's Actually Open on the Boards Right Now
If you've walked the boardwalk in the last few weeks, you've probably already noticed some of this without knowing the backstory:
- Tulum Taco Stand opened July 26. It's counter service only for now, tacos, bowls, churros, aguas frescas, and frozen margaritas, run by Nicolas Geeraerts, who also owns Tulum Tacos & Tequila locations in Baldwin and Mineola.
- Barrier Beets, at 190 Boardwalk next to the Mount Sinai Primary Care Walk-In Center, opened as a health-focused counter from owner Margot Palazzo, serving build-your-own salads, fresh-pressed juices, and toasts on gluten-free bread or sweet potato flats. It's open seven days a week.
- Riptides 11561, the longtime boardwalk café at Edwards Boulevard, has been serving breakfast sandwiches, smoothies, tacos, and burgers for years. Its attorney, Denis Kelly, told the council in April that Riptides had a liquor license application pending with the State Liquor Authority since the previous November, and that the café had no plans to add late hours or turn into anything resembling a nightclub.
That last point matters if you're wondering whether your evening walk is about to change character. It isn't built to.
What's Coming Before the Season Turns
The taco stand is the opening act, not the main event. Geeraerts is bringing a roughly 200-seat sit-down restaurant called Hacienda Tulum to the same stretch, with a mole-focused kitchen, private dining space, and a speakeasy. He's planning a soft opening in August and a full opening in September, which would put the bulk of the operation's real season squarely in the fall rather than the peak of summer.
Tulum's overall footprint anchors the new Superblock waterfront retail development at 180 Boardwalk, where the company has reportedly signed a lease for close to 5,800 square feet. At the April hearing, Geeraerts made a point of telling the council his lease caps operating hours at 11 p.m.
"We are not opening a nightclub," he said. "We are opening up a first-class establishment. A Mexican eatery and speakeasy."
Even with the local ordinance changed, nothing opens for alcohol service without a separate sign-off from the New York State Liquor Authority. Riptides applied in November and was still waiting as of the April hearing. Tulum applied around the same time. The city can clear the path, but the state still has to say yes, which is worth keeping in mind if you're timing a visit around a specific opening date rather than a general season.
The One Line That Actually Decides Your Evening
If you're trying to figure out what any of this means for a Tuesday night walk, it comes down to a single sentence buried in how the ordinance is written: alcohol is permitted at establishments that have an opening onto the boardwalk, not on the boardwalk itself. That's why the businesses moving fastest are the ones with actual dining rooms and doors, Tulum's forthcoming steakhouse, Riptides' café, the Allegria's existing service, rather than anything resembling a walk-up bar on the boards. The rule rewards a sit-down table with four walls around it. It doesn't reward a cooler and a cup.
So the practical version, for anyone planning a night out this season: you can order a drink at a table inside Hacienda Tulum once it opens, or eventually at Riptides once its license clears the state. You still can't carry that drink out the door and down the boards toward the water. The boardwalk didn't get looser. One set of doors along it did.
Tide Realty Group tracks these kinds of local shifts across every borough and corridor we work in, not because a boardwalk ordinance moves property values on its own, but because knowing what's actually changing in a place, block by block, is the same instinct that makes for good real estate work. If you're weighing a move in Long Beach or anywhere else on Long Island, Tide Realty Group is worth a conversation before you decide. Rise With Us.
