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Underground Hit Lowkey Breakfast Burritos Feeds Long Beach by Bike Messenger

The Instagram star with the cheese-wrapped crust is thinking outside the box

A hand with a blue glove prepares breakfast burritos from a street stand.
Lowkey Burritos at work
Farley Elliott
Farley Elliott is the Senior Editor at Eater LA and the author of Los Angeles Street Food: A History From Tamaleros to Taco Trucks. He covers restaurants in every form, from breaking news to the culture, people, and history that surrounds LA's dining landscape.

Underground breakfast burrito sensation Lowkey Burritos is back in action in Long Beach this weekend. The pop-up gained a cult following last year making morning burritos in a parking lot a block from Staples Center, complete with a crispy, cheesy crust on the outside. Now with the novel coronavirus pandemic, owner Matt Stevanus is sticking closer to his South Bay home, cooking at a private location in Long Beach and delivering burritos by bike messenger.

Stevanus tells Eater that the setup will run Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon, with burritos cooked at a secret location and run out to customers anywhere within a wide area bounded by Alamitos Avenue to the west, Anaheim Street to the north, and Redondo Avenue to the east. The burritos are being run by Maritime Courier, which has been operating in Long Beach since 2015, and already counts other restaurants among its customers. On its website, Maritime has a hand zone-specific map showing their travel boundaries; Lowkey will be selling in zone two. On Sunday, Stevanus will be doing private curbside pickups in Torrance as well.

Lowkey Burritos has become just the latest restaurant, pop-up, and/or street food vendor to rethink its business model in the face of COVID-19. For a while Stevanus was able to use his prodigious social media following to set up outside of coffee shops and other businesses with little risk, but now with a street food vending limitation in effect in the city of Los Angeles, and with the dangers of clusters of close customers, he’s taking no chances. Want a cheesy breakfast burrito delivered by bicycle tomorrow? Best to find a place to park in zone two in Long Beach tomorrow.