The Grand Long Beach Event Center is a 45,000 square foot facility, 450 car parking structure specializing in events of all types, full food and beverage services, bar services, sales professionals to help you plan your event, with no fees for planning services, and an amazing chef, sous chef and staff, highly trained operations and serving team available for your catering needs. 

Jim grew up in Chicago, where his father ran meat markets. In the late 60’s, they moved to Long Beach where he started one of the first catering companies. In 1997, The Grand Long Beach Event Center was born through an overhaul of all the event spaces including the Grand Ballroom and both outdoor courtyards, while the facility received exterior repairs and interior upgrades and enhancements. 

Jim is married to our previous executive director, Melanie Choura, and they have 4 children together.

One of our long-standing members, Jim Choura, provided insight about The Grand and how he compares running his business to being a member of the Execs. Jim has more than a 100,000 square feet of event space including The Grand in Long Beach and an event center in Carson. The Grand host 60-75 events a week with spaces that can hold 10 people up to a 1000. Jim states that his prices are 30% better than most hotel conference rooms in the area. Jim explains that he is not stagnate with how his business is run and is always looking to improve through hiring personable staff, returning calls within 24 hours and continued research on food development. Jim believes that continuing to improve his business has helped The Grand thrive. With each event he hosts is another possible lead for him to get another event.

Jim compares his membership with the Execs to his business, "you have to give to get". Jim encouraged members to try to do more business with people in the Execs to keep themselves top of mind with the members. He believes it’s not required that we give members a discount or even that we promise to give each other our business but to participate and provide leads within in the Execs will create a return on investment through building relationships, leads, and more clients. 

Remember to keep The Grand in mind for your next upcoming event, as they can take care of any event, whether it’s a private party, business gathering, nonprofit events, and cultural events.