If you have lived in Brentwood for more than a couple of years, the block you drive past on your way to Whole Foods looks different this summer. The storefronts that used to cycle through a nail salon, a juice bar, and another nail salon are now anchored by a Questlove-branded sandwich counter, a New York pizza operator on his second West Coast attempt, and a bagel shop that already decided to pack up and move to Santa Monica. This is not the usual retail churn. It is, in large part, the Palisades economy relocating three miles east, and it is changing what a normal Sunday in Brentwood looks like.
Nine Openings in Four Months
The clearest way to measure the shift is to count. Nine new shops opened in downtown Brentwood and the Brentwood Village between January and April 2026, including Pop Up Bagels, Great White, Go Greek, Neighborly, Ggiata, Paliskates and Flour Pizzeria and Cafe, with Layla's Bagels and Community Goods set to open shortly after. That is a pace this stretch of San Vicente has not seen in memory, and it is happening while longtime businesses continue to close because landowners are driving up rent.
A few of these are worth knowing by name before you walk past them:
- Neighborly Brentwood, 11770 San Vicente Blvd. A food hall with four chef-driven counters under one roof.
- Flour Pizzeria & Cafe. A New York-style pizza shop that lost its Palisades storefront to the fire and reopened here.
- Paliskates. The Palisades skate and surf institution, now trading in the Country Mart area.
- Savta. A second location of the Farmers Market handroll shop, at 906 S Barrington Ave.
- Pop Up Bagels. Already announced it is relocating its bagel-making operation to Santa Monica after a competitor opened down the street.
The last item is the tell. A shop can open, thrive, and decide to leave inside the same calendar year on this stretch. That is a market absorbing a lot of new inventory at once.
Why San Vicente Suddenly Has a Food Hall
Neighborly Brentwood opened on Saturday, April 11, at 11:00 a.m., and the tenant list explains why it matters more than a typical opening. The four counters are What Gaby's Cooking from Chef Gaby Dalkin, Mini Kabob from Chef Armen Martirosyan and family, Mixtape from Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, and Palermo Pizza Club from Frank Pinello of Williamson, New York's Best Pizza. The concept, imported from a single Westlake Village original, is that a curated marketplace lets people order from different menus and chefs all under the same order, mixing and matching between concepts.
Read that as a real estate signal. Brentwood has always had chef-driven single-concept restaurants. What it has not had is a landlord willing to lease a 10,000-square-foot box to a food hall operator on the assumption that four rotating chefs draw more foot traffic than one white-tablecloth tenant. That bet only pencils in a neighborhood the developer believes is trending younger and more casual on weeknights. Whether that read is correct is a separate question, but the lease is signed.
The Palisades Effect Is Structural, Not Symbolic
Everyone in Brentwood knows the Palisades Fire pushed people east. What is less obvious is that the same thing happened to the retail economy, and the timing lines up with those nine openings.
Flour Pizzeria is the cleanest example. Founded by Robert Flutie in 2023 to bring New York-style pizza to Los Angeles, the original restaurant was destroyed in the Palisades Fires, and Flutie opened a new location in Brentwood, which has since earned recognition and praise from both food critics and customers. Flutie told the Harvard-Westlake Chronicle that there are a lot of similarities between Brentwood and the Palisades, and that the family atmosphere, kids from nearby schools, and walkable community cultivated a positive translation.
Paliskates followed a similar path. The move to Brentwood was motivated by a desire to reopen in an area close to the kids, and the Country Mart area was chosen because it still has a little village feel to it.
The Sunday farmers market is the most physically visible piece of the shift. The Pacific Palisades Farmers Market, displaced by the Palisades Fire, temporarily merged with the Brentwood Farmers Market, allowing small businesses from the Palisades to continue operating and providing a familiar space for displaced residents to maintain routines and reconnect with neighbors. The market expanded along San Vicente Boulevard from Gretna Green Way to Bundy Drive to accommodate the additional vendors, and as a safety measure eastbound traffic on San Vicente is reduced to one lane for a short stretch.
If your Sunday drive between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. has felt slower this year, that is the mechanism. It is worth budgeting the extra ten minutes rather than resenting it.
The Country Mart Is Programming Around the Change
The Brentwood Country Mart, first opened on November 18, 1948, is next to the Santa Monica eastern city limit, and Brentwood residents are very protective of it. The Rosenfield-era Mart has responded to the neighborhood's higher foot traffic this summer by leaning harder on free programming rather than more retail:
- Wednesday Mart Littles Story Time, hosted by Cassidy Preschool in the courtyard, running Wednesdays at 11 a.m. through the end of August.
- August Friday movie nights. Free family-friendly classic films every Friday at 6 p.m. in the Courtyard, with dinner and treats available from Country Mart merchants.
- World Cup viewing on the courtyard big screen alongside USA versus Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday, July 1 at 5 p.m., in the courtyard with dinner available from nearby eateries.
If you already do the Sunday farmers market on San Vicente, adding a Wednesday morning at the Mart and a Friday evening film in August is a three-touchpoint week that costs nothing.
What Is Still Coming
Two announced tenants are worth tracking because they will change the tone of the Village and the boulevard again.
Terroni Brentwood Village, 155 S. Barrington Place. The Italian dining group behind Terroni in Fairfax and Larchmont has applied for a liquor license for the property under the name Terroni Brentwood. Proprietor Sheereen Koules is hoping to open the new Brentwood Village location in spring 2026. That timeline may slip, but the paperwork is in.
Montana's, from The h.wood Group. Slated for an early 2027 opening at 11920 San Vicente Blvd., the venue will combine the brand's signature speakeasy aesthetic with a sophisticated neighborhood dining experience. This is the same operator behind Delilah, which tells you the intended clientele.
Both take asking rents that would have been implausible on these blocks five years ago. They will not stand or fall based on Brentwood residents alone, which is a change from the older village model where a restaurant lived or died by the neighbors within walking distance.
A Local Weekend Template
For a summer week that actually uses what has changed:
Saturday morning. Coffee and a pastry at the Country Mart courtyard, then a walk through the shops that have refreshed since spring. The outdoor dining area surrounding the fire pit in the middle is still the best free seat in the neighborhood.
Sunday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The expanded farmers market on San Vicente between Gretna Green Way and Bundy. Park north of San Vicente or bike in. This is where you will see former Palisades neighbors if you have not already.
Weekday lunch. Order across two counters at Neighborly. Mini Kabob and Palermo Pizza Club is a defensible combination.
Friday evening in August. Film at the Country Mart courtyard, dinner from a Mart tenant. Bring a low chair.
Dinner reservation to keep an eye on. Terroni Brentwood Village when it opens. It will be difficult to book for the first six months.
The larger point is that Brentwood in 2026 is denser, more chef-driven, and more Palisades-adjacent than it was eighteen months ago, and the changes are stacked into a narrow corridor along San Vicente and 26th. If you have been coasting on the same three restaurants and one coffee shop for a decade, this is the summer to redraw the map.
If you own a home here and are curious what this concentration of new retail is doing to your block's positioning, or if you are weighing a move within the Westside and want a candid read on where the demand is actually forming, Trinton Hurt is happy to talk. Let's Connect.
