Entrepreneurs Offered Brick-And-Mortar Experiment At Long Beach's Corner Pop-Up

By Ashleigh Ruhl

Entrepreneur Emerald Austin’s dream is to one day open a brick-and-mortar for Royal Gourmet Cookies, and she’s getting a two-week glimpse of what that would be like as she sets up shop at The Corner Pop-Up.

Austin, 38, who currently runs Royal Gourmet Cookies out of her home kitchen, will be the first business owner in Long Beach to temporarily occupy the corner space on the ground floor of the historic Palace building at 2640 E. Anaheim St., bordering Ohio Avenue.

Through a partnership with the city, Pacific Gateway (a public workforce agency) and LINC Housing, the 1,000-square-foot retail area is being offered to Austin at no cost from Thursday to Sunday for two consecutive weeks, starting in late October. Then, the space will be available for other businesses to use to sell their products, test experimental concepts and market their brands.

“We are constantly looking at ways that we can remove barriers to start up businesses,” Long Beach Economic Development Officer Seyed Jalali said last week at a ribbon cutting for The Corner Pop-Up, where Austin shared cookies and glasses of milk

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