Hello Stranger. It Seems So Good to See You Back Again Lewis

Angela Romero, the creator of Hullo Stranger, at her space in Picayune Tokyo.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Strutting past the concrete floors and charcoal-colored walls of her presently-to-exist music venue, Angela Romero breaks into song. "Diamond in the back, sunroof pinnacle / Diggin' the scene with a gangster lean," she croons, reciting the William DeVaughn lyrics — a reference to pimpmobiles — that inspired the diamond-shaped window she installed in a kitchen door.

Nearly every inch of Hello Stranger, Romero'southward before long-to-open up bar, restaurant and music venue similarly pays respect to lowrider motorcar culture and the oldies soundtrack that bumps alongside it. There's a corner berth dubbed "Stay in My Corner" later the 1965 ballad by the Dells and a window installation inspired past the 1981 Teena Marie hit "Square Biz." A sign in front of the men's restroom reads "Mr. Large Stuff," evoking the 1971 singalong past Jean Knight. (Information technology's also the title of a music event Romero organized years agone as a course of catharsis later on finding out her then-boyfriend cheated on her.)

Even the bar'southward proper name, Hello Stranger, was plucked from a poetry in the Barbara Lewis doo-wop hit released nearly two decades earlier Romero was born. With lyrics like "It seems so adept to see you back once more" — printed in Old English font on Hello Stranger's merchandise — the vocal is a throwback and a weirdly fitting anthem for a time marked by quarantines, closures and reunions. "I always said that [the phrase] 'how-do-you-do stranger' was similar a handshake without the handshake," says Romero, 40, who wears silver hoop earrings and has a shock of dyed wavy pilus the colour of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. "So when COVID came, I was like, it makes more sense at present, you know?"

When the venue opens later this month, after years of pandemic-related delays, a messy trademark lawsuit and a series of personal tragedies, Romero hopes it feels like a return — not only to a time earlier COVID but to a previous era, when people "had plenty respect to put on suits to go out."

Angela Romero, the creator of Hello Stranger, is photographed at her space in Little Tokyo in the corner booth dubbed "Stay in My Corner" after the 1965 ballad by The Dells.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Taking over the second floor of a building on Footling Tokyo's second Street, Hello Stranger is the physical iteration of Romero'south concert promotion business organisation, catering and cocktail programme, and, more recently, nonprofit foundation of the same proper name. The brand dates back to 2017, when Romero began selling Hello Stranger-emblazoned T-shirts, sweatshirts and "shop rags" — a must for mechanics — at car shows like Mooneyes and music festivals including Punk Rock Bowling. Information technology hosted its first music event — an RSVP-simply popular-up at a loft virtually Chinatown — the following twelvemonth, surprising an intimate crowd with performances by Grammy-nominated R&B singer Aloe Blacc, oldies legend Rocky Padilla and members of the Delfonics and War.

"There was such a FOMO after that. Everyone was like, 'Who the hell are you? What are you doing? It's just you, girl?'" says Romero, who can talk uninterrupted for hours, occasionally weaving in Castilian and Spanglish. "From in that location, the make started growing, and I fabricated sure that all those people who did show upwards were on the adjacent invite list … that to me was the best way to cultivate family unit naturally."

Since so, Hi Stranger has booked everything from musical acts at festivals to chefs and bartenders at curated food events. Romero's philosophy? "Pay respect to the OGs that really created that fashion, but showcase the new voices who looked upwards to the OGs."

The venue itself does just that, blending quondam-fashioned staples with of-the-moment trends. Its midcentury-inspired supper club eschews American comfort nutrient for Oaxacan street food. The stage might feature an octogenarian jazz band one dark and a Twitter-famous stand-up comic the side by side. And while the vibe is unapologetically pre-cellphone era, information technology also boasts Instagram-friendly murals including an outline of the Virgin of Guadalupe near the archway.

Entrance to Hello Stranger in Petty Tokyo.

(Christina Firm / Los Angeles Times)

Steering clear of the machismo that sometimes characterizes the lowrider scene, Hi Stranger instead highlights work by women artists. A neon piece past Venice-based creative person Tory DiPietro illuminates the words "Sweet affair" — a nod to the Rufus song featuring Chaka Khan — in pink light on the dorsum wall of the space. Romero has asked her aunt, El Sereno artist Ester Petschar — she memorably appeared in terminal year'southward Netflix docuseries "Night Stalker: The Chase for a Serial Killer" — to paint a landscape near the entrance. And the venue'southward centerpiece, a glittery pink bar top with painted roses, was designed past the artist Elrod (built-in Leanne Rodriguez) to evoke Gypsy Rose, a legendary Chevy Impala lowrider.

"The music industry, the bar world, it's only all a homo's game," says Romero. "I want people to know that a female person opened this infinite."

Angela Romero hosts her first private event at Hello Stranger'due south first physical location.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Guests at Hello Stranger'southward first outcome with singer-songwriter Aaron Frazer of Durand Jones and the Indications.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

The other thing Romero wants people to know near this infinite: It's a tribute to Fifty.A.'s Blackness, Mexican and Japanese cultures. Citing the robust lowrider scene in Japan, Romero says, "They really love and comprehend Chicano civilisation to the point where they alive it. And I hateful, Chicano civilisation doesn't necessarily mean that people are Mexican."

Design elements inside the venue pay homage to a mix of L.A. cultures. A floor cleft filled with gold paint is a subtle nod to the Japanese wabi-sabi philosophy of cartoon attention to imperfections. Nearby, iii black dots painted on the flooring represent the thought of mi vida loca, popular in Chicano tattoo culture. (Romero and her mom have it tattooed on their wrists; to a higher place Romero'south dots is the discussion firme, Spanish for strength.) "Unremarkably it's associated with gangs, merely for the most part, it is likewise just an embodiment of one's civilisation," not unlike a "pachuco cross," which is as well painted on the ground, Romero says.

In line with its melding of Japanese and Mexican cultures, last May, Hello Stranger launched Oishi Barrio, a monthly open-air marketplace that translates roughly to "succulent neighborhood" in Japanese and Spanish, respectively. The events, which ran from spring through autumn at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Heart, featured DJs such as Ruben Molina of the Southern Soul Spinners, food pop-ups like Tacocidal Tendencies and retail vendors including Mi Vida.

"I really similar that she made a point to exercise that," says Mayra Ramirez, one of the DJs of all-female person commonage Chulita Vinyl Club who has worked with Romero at How-do-you-do Stranger. "And too just bring a lot of other people that normally wouldn't be hanging out in Little Tokyo on a Sunday afternoon."

Just a few months later on Oishi Barrio launched, Hello Stranger held its biggest event yet: a two-day festival dubbed Hit the Switches (the name is a slang reference to activating hydraulics on a lowrider). Hosted at Santa Anita Park in August, the event featured a car show, roller rink and performances past L.A. funk and soul artists including Dâm-Funk, XL Middleton, the Altons and the DJ and rapper Arabian Prince, formerly of N.Westward.A.

"[Romero] is i of only a handful of promoters I've worked with in my forty years of doing this that really impressed me, from the way she treated all her artists to the hand-picked artists who performed," the DJ and producer Egyptian Lover, a.k.a. Greg Broussard, said most his experience headlining the festival.

Broussard traces the origins of his musical interests back to the lowriders he and his friends saw growing up in South Central. "Cruising down Crenshaw and Hollywood Boulevard gave u.s.a. the mixed cultural music scene nosotros needed," he said. "From oldies but goodies to hip-hop to soul to funk to one-time school — hearing the music and watching the cars was our entertainment."

Angela Romero, the creator of How-do-you-do Stranger, is photographed at her space in Little Tokyo.

(Christina Firm / Los Angeles Times)

Growing up in El Sereno, Romero was practically born into the lowrider scene: Her oldest brother, Michael, whose untimely decease inspired Romero to create Hullo Stranger, was known for throwing concerts and classic car shows around boondocks. Michael was fifteen years older than Angela, but he had an outsize influence on her. "Angela is the spitting paradigm of her brother. They're two peas in a pod," says Angela'due south mother, Caroline, who was built-in near Boyle Heights and raised seven children — including her youngest, twins Angela and Audrey — in the same house where she nonetheless lives today.

Yet, Romero struggled to foursquare the person she admired with the person who served time for assault and battery charges when she was nevertheless a child, in the mid-'80s and early '90s. "I never gave him passes for being the person he was dorsum in the solar day," says Romero. "Simply it took me a while to realize nosotros are all human, and people brand mistakes ... how exercise we acquire from those lessons?"

When a bullet to his cervix left Michael paralyzed, Angela became his caregiver, becoming "his easily and feet" while helping to run his concert promotion business organization. "I don't want to say I was forced into helping him promote his shows, only that's really where I learned it from," she says.

Michael eventually joined a Christian ministry and defended his life to community service, incorporating charity elements into his car shows and concerts. His "volunteer efforts on behalf of the neighborhood" led to his being named honorary mayor of El Sereno, according to a 2001 Times article.

By that point, he'd survived more than than a few near-death experiences, including a stabbing nigh his heart, earning him a reputation for having nine lives. One such incident, in which a authorities vehicle backed into him in his wheelchair, left the already-paralyzed Michael with shattered bones from his ribs to his ankles, co-ordinate to Romero.

His ensuing 2008 lawsuit against the city of 50.A. and the California Department of Transportation resulted in an undisclosed settlement, court records show. A year later, another tragedy striking: Michael's 17-twelvemonth-old son was gunned down while riding his bicycle near their San Bernardino abode.

"Both of them were shot [during their lifetimes]. My brother survived just became paralyzed; his son didn't make information technology," says Romero, reflecting on "the amount of tragedy and death that just seems so normal when you grow upward in certain areas of the hood."
When Michael passed abroad from complications due to pneumonia in 2014, Romero opted for a concert rather than a funeral, calling on Michael's longtime friends and clients — juggernauts of the oldies scene — to celebrate his life: Brenton Forest, Rocky Padilla and members of the Temptations, the Delfonics and the Notations.

Michael's death devastated Romero. Information technology likewise brought her an unexpected windfall: Michael had left her his manor. Romero won't annotate on the amount of coin she inherited but suggests information technology was substantial enough to be life-altering — for improve or worse. "Everyone felt the need to say why they felt I should give them something or do something for them," she recalls. "Even correct now, my circle of family that I become to hang out with is very minor, my circumvolve of friends is really small-scale."

Angela Romero sits at a glittery pink bar top with painted roses designed by the artist Elrod to evoke Gypsy Rose, a legendary Chevy Impala lowrider.

(Christina Firm / Los Angeles Times)

Romero used the inheritance to assistance kick-start Hi Stranger — a business concept she says she and Michael had always dreamed of doing together. "This is my grief," she says. "I'thou a crybaby. I'grand a sad girl. That's how Howdy Stranger was built."

Still, the long road to opening Hello Stranger has not been easy or straightforward. "You still take to work your ass off to get to this point ... to the point where it was beyond exhausting," Romero says.

Kickoff came the renovations, which proved to be extensive. And so came a triple whammy of legal and personal setbacks: An Oakland bar of the aforementioned proper name sued Hello Stranger for trademark infringement. Romero'due south male parent — so recently divorced after 36 years of marriage — got prostate cancer. And Romero's relationship with her then-boyfriend was falling apart.

"I was leaving my ex and coming here, and I was but sleeping here. It wasn't ideal. I truly felt similar I didn't actually have anywhere to go," she says.

Past the fourth dimension the lawsuit was resolved and dismissed in 2019, information technology seemed like easy cruising. Romero's father was in remission, and she'd moved into her own place, in Lincoln Heights, following the breakdown. Then the pandemic hitting, bringing with it fifty-fifty more than delays and an entirely new set of obstacles.

Thinking back on her vida loca, Romero has to express joy. "Maybe [having] kids would take been dainty, you know, the family unit, the marriage. But it feels like I'm just married to this, you know? This is my baby," she says. "It's creating longevity for the family unit, and it'south something that I know that [Michael] would have wanted."

She sits at her shiny pinkish bar and sips a tin can of pineapple juice, inventory for the cocktails she'southward developing for the menu. "I'm near likely going to exist working here every day of my life," she says. "This is what I do."

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Source: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-03-04/how-a-concert-promoter-turned-her-love-for-lowriders-into-las-most-original-new-venue

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