"If you go on the trail, it's really nice and you can see everything." That's how Dash Stolarz, director of public affairs for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, described the rebuilt Rivas Trail at Temescal Gateway Park after it reopened on July 17, 2026. Four weeks later, on August 15, Palisades Village reopened with a ribbon-cutting, an evening concert, and mannequins dressed in A.L.C. and Brunello Cucinelli. One of these reopenings got national coverage. The other one is the reason most residents can hike again.
Both matter. But if you live here and you're trying to figure out what your actual week looks like now, the Village date is the wrong place to start. It restores a gathering place. It does not restore a grocery store, and it does not reopen the one trail everyone actually misses. Understanding what came back when, and what still hasn't, is the difference between planning a realistic week and being surprised twice.
What the Village Actually Changes
Palisades Village closed for 19 months after the January 2025 fire, not because it burned but because it didn't. It reopened on August 15, 2026. The center survived on private firefighters and fire-resistant construction, then spent over $100 million getting gutted to the studs anyway to deal with smoke and water damage in the walls, ducts, and insulation. By the reopening it was 99 percent leased, with roughly a third of that space going to tenants who had never been there before.
The returning list reads like the old directory: Erewhon, Blue Ribbon Sushi (now with a redesigned patio and a 14-seat omakase room), K Bakery, Loomey's Toys, Porta Via. Elyse Walker's flagship is back too, after 25 years at a location across the street that the fire destroyed. She dispersed her staff to her Calabasas and Newport Beach stores during the interim, and nearly all of them are returning. Chef Gino Angelini is bringing back Angelini Ristorante, but he's said he wants it to be a quiet reopening out of respect for neighbors who are still rebuilding.
The new names are where the character shifts. Nancy Silverton, the chef behind Mozza, is opening Spacca Tutto, an Italian steakhouse. Timothy Hollingsworth's Alphabet Bar & Grill is coming in through the h.wood Group. LESET picked the Palisades for its first West Coast store. Xirena, the L.A. label known for relaxed California basics, is opening its first standalone shop here after more than a decade of selling wholesale. Before the fire, roughly 70 percent of the Village's foot traffic came from outside the 90272 zip code. The new tenant mix reads like a bet on doubling down on that draw rather than reverting to a purely neighborhood convenience center.
What Was Already Back Before Anyone Cut a Ribbon
Here's the part the national coverage skipped: daily life in the Palisades didn't wait for August 15. It reassembled in pieces, through smaller storefronts, for most of the past year and a half.
Palisades Garden Café became a default meeting spot early, in part because it reopened before there was much else to meet at. Moku Sushi, Spruzzo, Prima Cantina, Caffé Delfini, The Golden Bull, and Giorgio Baldi have all been serving dinner. Starbucks in the Highlands never really left the rotation. Palisades Wine & Spirits, the post office, a scatter of banks, salons, and medical offices kept running errands local. Anawalt's has been the hardware run. Pali Rx has been filling prescriptions. Pali Trading Post opened as a new general store built around the neighborhood's own history.
None of that made headlines the way a $100 million shopping center reopening does. But it's the actual infrastructure of a week here, and it was functioning well before the Village's doors opened. The Village adds density and a reason to linger. It didn't create the baseline. The baseline was already there.
The Two Gaps That the Reopening Doesn't Touch
This is where the story gets less tidy than a ribbon-cutting photo.
Groceries. The Ralphs on Sunset Boulevard was destroyed in the fire and is expected to be rebuilt eventually, though no construction timeline has been announced. Gelson's, which operated nearby on Sunset, has said it intends to rebuild as well, with a similarly open-ended schedule. Erewhon inside the Village is a genuinely good specialty grocer. It is not a substitute for the weekly cart-and-checkout run most households were doing at Ralphs. That gap is not closing this year, and it's worth planning around rather than assuming it'll resolve itself.
The waterfall trail. Temescal Gateway Park's July 17 reopening restored the rebuilt Rivas Trail, which climbs to two scenic overlooks and connects onward to Will Rogers State Historic Park. The Sunset Trail reopened too, linking to Temescal Ridge Trail and Topanga State Park, and the Sycamore Grove and Rubell picnic areas are open for anyone who just wants a spot to sit. What's still closed, indefinitely, is the Temescal Canyon Trail to the waterfall, the route most people actually picture when they think of hiking here. Fire damage left the trail conditions unsafe, and there's no reopening date attached to it. As Palisades resident William Beasley put it after the Village's ribbon-cutting, "Come back. It's a great community." True, but it's a community you're still hiking around one closed trail and one missing supermarket to get to.
How the Week Actually Runs Now
Put the pieces together and a realistic week in the Palisades looks less like "everything's back" and more like a specific, workable rhythm:
- Wednesdays, 1:30 to 5:30 p.m., the Pacific Palisades Farmers Market runs at the Village.
- Mondays, 10 a.m. to noon, there's a Mahjong Social at the Village, complimentary.
- First Tuesday of the month, 6 to 7:30 p.m., it's Rummikub.
- Fourth Sunday, 8 a.m., Cars & Coffee takes over part of the Village.
- Weekend mornings, the Rivas Trail is open for the overlook hike, with a connection through to Will Rogers State Historic Park if you want to extend it, or the Sunset Trail if you're headed toward Temescal Ridge and Topanga State Park instead.
- Weekly groceries still mean a drive toward Brentwood or Santa Monica until Ralphs or Gelson's has a confirmed rebuild date.
Complimentary parking at the Village runs through September 30, which is a reasonable window to actually go test the new mix before it reverts to normal rates.
The Timeline Was Never Going to Be One Date
Outside coverage needed a single milestone to hang the recovery story on, and August 15 was a clean one: a dollar figure, a ribbon, a mayor's quote. Residents know better, because they've been living the actual sequence. The small restaurants came back first, on their own timelines, without much notice. The trail system came back next, missing its most popular route. The big center came back last, changed enough that a third of its storefronts will carry names nobody here has used before. The supermarket, the thing most people would probably rank first if you asked what they actually needed back, still doesn't have a date.
That's not a complaint about the pace. It's just a more accurate map than "the Palisades is back" or "the Palisades isn't back yet." It's back in specific, nameable pieces, on different schedules, and knowing which piece you're dealing with is the whole difference between a week that goes smoothly and one that doesn't.
If you're watching the Palisades from the outside and trying to understand what any of this means for the neighborhood long term, that's a different conversation, and one John Iglar has been having with clients throughout the rebuild. You can find more on how the neighborhood is shaping up on the Pacific Palisades neighborhood page. For residents, though, the practical takeaway is simpler: check which trail is actually open before you drive up Temescal Canyon Road, and don't count on the Village for your grocery list just yet.
