For the better part of a decade, the recurring line about Abbot Kinney was that it had lost the plot. GQ named it the coolest block in America in 2012, chains followed, rents climbed, and locals started sending guests to Rose Avenue instead. If you live in Venice, you have probably repeated some version of that take at a dinner party. It is worth walking the boulevard again. The story you have been telling is out of date.
The Number That Reframes The Block
Start with occupancy. According to a December 2024 survey of the boulevard by FashionNetwork, fewer than 10 of the roughly 100 storefronts along the mile-long stretch sit vacant, near-full occupancy for a commercial corridor in Los Angeles, where retail vacancies have been a defining story for three consecutive years.
That is the baseline every other update on this page should be read against. When a street this heavily discussed is running above 90% leased in an LA retail market that has been the subject of three straight years of vacancy coverage, the interesting question is not whether Abbot Kinney is back. It is who chose to sign a lease here over the alternatives, and what that says about how the boulevard is being reshaped for the people who actually live within a few blocks of it.
Where The Chefs Landed
The most talked-about opening on the Westside in late 2024 was not in Santa Monica or Brentwood. It was on Abbot Kinney.
RVR is the new izakaya from Gjelina Group chef Travis Lett, which LA Magazine named among the best new restaurants in Los Angeles for 2026. Lett spent years running the Gjelina kitchen a few blocks away, took a five-year hiatus, and returned to Venice with a small space he initially used for the short-run MTN pop-up before opening RVR in October 2024. Reservations are required weeks out. The menu applies Japanese technique to California produce: chicken karaage, roasted sweet potato, hand rolls, and a Santa Barbara black cod that regulars keep ordering.
A block away, the old James Beach space has become Si! Mon. The old venue, an iconic Westside locals' watering hole, has been replaced by a place intended for those willing to casually drop $150 apiece on dinner and drinks. It is run by the same group behind nearby Menotti's and Townhouse, as well as Culver City's similarly upscale Hatchet Hall. Head chef José Carles hails from Panama City, where his other restaurant, Fonda Lo Que Hay, has garnered the attention of Latin America's 50 Best. Whether you read that as a gain or a loss depends on how long you have lived here. Read it as data either way: the operators who took the space are not experimenting.
On Market Street, the former 72 Market Street Oyster Bar has reopened as Market. An aperitivo restaurant and bar on Venice's historic Market Street that plays it cool till 11pm, when opera curtains black out the room, the disco ball drops, and things get considerably more rowdy. It occupies an airy loft with brick walls, a 20-foot bar, and a 12-foot glass wall onto the sidewalk. The lighter fare shines: oysters with spiced cucumber vinaigrette, Italian endives with white anchovies and piave vecchio, and an acid-forward red snapper with stewed tomatoes, olives, and jimmy nardellos.
The most quietly ambitious arrival is in the former Koast space. After running the Jaca Social pop-up from his house last year, Daniel Patterson, former chef of SF's Coi and Alta Adams co-founder, now has a tasting menu restaurant in the former Koast space designed to feel like a nightly dinner party. The 10-course menu costs $295 per person and leans vegetable-focused, featuring foraged ingredients like spruce tips, nopales, and roasted kelp. A tasting menu of that scale committing to Venice rather than a downtown or Beverly Hills address is the kind of signal that used to run the other direction.
And the pipeline is not empty. The Mahendro brothers' cult-favorite restaurant, known for reshaping perceptions of Indian cuisine in Los Angeles, is set to debut a new Badmaash location on Venice's Abbot Kinney Boulevard, pairing remixed classics with snazzy interiors and a focus on culture, connection and late-night energy. A famous OC pizzeria is also expanding to Venice, one of several 2026 openings the Infatuation flagged in its January guide.
The Smaller Changes That Tell You More
Restaurants of this profile get press. What actually shifts how a street feels on a Tuesday night is the smaller stuff.
Next door to the Vin on Rose wine shop, a very small new sandwich counter has taken over the old Moon Juice space. The people behind the Venice wine shop Vin on Rose took over the former Moon Juice space next door and turned it into a cheese and sandwich shop stocked with charcuterie, tinned fish, and cheeses, with a small daily menu that includes classics like jamon beurre and caprese as well as a duck rillette banh mi and french onion grilled cheese. That is a former cold-pressed juice slot converted into a place selling tinned fish and cured pork. The demographic assumption underneath the lease has changed.
Two doors of retail down, at 1142 Abbot Kinney, is another example of how the boulevard is being programmed for daily use rather than tourism. Influencer Emma Chamberlain's coffee brand now has a second location in LA, this one on Abbot Kinney. The larger shop channels a vintage hotel lobby, with green tiles and quirky art on the walls. A few Venice-exclusive drinks are available, like an olive oil latte and a tiramisu latte, alongside the usual menu. Whatever you think of the brand, the choice to make Abbot Kinney the second LA outpost is a vote on who walks past the window.
The pattern here is worth naming. The boardwalk still pulls a certain kind of visitor. Abbot Kinney is being repriced and re-tenanted around the people who live within a bike ride of it, not the ones parking for the afternoon.
Two Dates To Put On The Calendar
Two events this year are worth planning around rather than stumbling into.
The first is a mile-long race that has quietly become a neighborhood fixture. The 3rd annual Abbot Kinney One, presented by On and Electrolit and organized by the Venice Run Club, takes place on Sunday, June 28th, 2026, along Abbot Kinney Boulevard. The USATF-certified one-mile race offers a Friends and Family Mile, youth races for ages 6 to 18, and competitive heats for men and women including elite and masters divisions. There is a Dog Mile as well. Participants get chip-timed results, free race photos, and a race medal. Packet pick-up is at the On LA Store Cabana. A one-mile course on a street this walkable is really a block party with numbers pinned to it.
The second is the return of the boulevard's flagship event. The Abbot Kinney Festival, canceled two years in a row, is back on the calendar for September 27, 2026. The 2025 postponement was influenced by several factors, including a slowdown in sponsorships affecting many festivals and events, and the non-profit board framed the pause as a chance to restructure before returning. For anyone who moved to Venice in the last three years and has never seen this street closed to traffic, this is the one to plan around. The festival occurs each year on the last Sunday in September, is 40-plus years strong, and features free admission, 350 quality vendors, food trucks and booths, kids' rides and games, multiple music stages, and multiple beer gardens.
What To Take From It
Any single one of the above, a new izakaya, a returning festival, a sandwich shop where a juice bar used to be, would be routine. What makes this moment on Abbot Kinney worth reading is that they are happening on top of one another on the same street, at a moment when the wider LA retail conversation is about empty storefronts. Chefs with serious résumés are choosing Venice over more obvious addresses. A community event is coming back after two years off. Occupancy is holding above the citywide baseline.
If you have been sending out-of-town guests to Rose or to Main because Abbot Kinney felt done, take another lap. Book a table at RVR three weeks out, walk the block on a Saturday afternoon before the June race, and put September 27 on the calendar. The street you decided about in 2018 is not the street you are living next to in 2026.
When you are ready to talk about what any of this means for your home on the Westside, Isabelle Mizrahi and Coleman Eisner are available for a private conversation. Book an Appointment.
