For a decade, the running joke about Abbot Kinney was that you could not name the tenant two doors down because it would be gone by the next lease cycle. GQ crowned the block in 2012, and by 2015 the churn had turned into the story residents told about their own street. Summer 2026 is the first season in a while where that story does not hold.
A December 2024 audit of the corridor by FashionNetwork found fewer than 10 of the roughly 100 storefronts along the mile of Abbot Kinney sitting empty, near-full occupancy in a city where retail vacancy has been the dominant headline for three straight years. What has moved into those gaps is worth paying attention to if you already live here, because the operators signing leases in 2026 are not the pop-up class. They are chefs and hospitality groups building rooms they intend to stay in.
The Occupancy Number That Changes The Read
Full corridors behave differently than half-empty ones. Foot traffic stays consistent through weeknights, restaurants can plan Tuesday menus around actual demand, and the sidewalk stops feeling like a graveyard of butcher paper on windows. The vacancy figure is the quiet variable behind almost every other observation in this post, so it is worth stating up front rather than burying it in a paragraph about a specific opening.
Who Signed The Long Leases
The most-discussed opening of the season landed on March 27, 2026, when Badmaash opened its third Los Angeles location at 1616 Abbot Kinney Boulevard, a space that previously churned through Yours Truly, Piccolo, and Capri. Brothers Nakul and Arjun Mahendro, running the concept with their father Pawan, brought in design firm Preen Inc. for a charcoal-toned dining room with candlelit stone tables and a back space meant to echo Indian temple interiors. Beverage director Steve LaFountain built the drinks program around natural wines, a Badmaash dirty martini, a mezcal margarita, and a bourbon drink sweetened with date jam. Menu additions specific to the Venice room include steak frites with an Indian pepper sauce, lamb neck korma, hamachi crudo, and a whipped ricotta toast with tamarind, kumquat, and blood-orange jam. Hours run Wednesday through Sunday, 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.
A few blocks over on Washington Boulevard, ¡Salud! opened at 417 Washington in late January 2026 and held its Venice Chamber ribbon-cutting on January 24. The concept splits the day: specialty coffee and Latin-inspired breakfast in the morning, then mezcal cocktails and tapas at night. A churro waffle with cajeta drizzle and an iced horchata chai latte anchor the morning menu; the bar takes over after dark with tequila-forward cocktails and small plates. Roughly 100 locals turned out when the Chamber held its March mixer there, which is the kind of turnout that tells you a place has been absorbed into the neighborhood rather than just observed by it.
RVR, Travis Lett's izakaya on Abbot Kinney, is not new this summer but is worth mentioning because it has kept its reservation window locked at weeks out through the spring. Lett ran the Gjelina kitchen a few blocks away for years, took a five-year hiatus, and came back with a small room that LA Magazine named among the best new restaurants in Los Angeles for 2026. The menu applies Japanese technique to California produce: chicken karaage, hand rolls, roasted sweet potato, a Santa Barbara black cod that regulars keep reordering.
Farther up the block, the group behind Menotti's, Townhouse, and Hatchet Hall opened Si! Mon in the former James Beach space, an upscale Panamanian room from chef José Carles of Fonda Lo Que Hay in Panama City. The room reads as a deliberate mirror of where the neighborhood has landed, high check average and design-forward rather than eclectic and cheap. Whether that is welcome or not depends on how long you have lived here, but it is the operator profile the street is attracting now.
The Weekly Cadence
Newness aside, most of what makes a Venice summer feel like a Venice summer is a set of standing dates you can plan a Friday afternoon around. The rhythm this year:
- Friday, Venice Beach Farmers' Market. The weekly market runs every Friday and is the anchor for a walkable evening loop from Rose Avenue down toward Abbot Kinney.
- First Friday on Abbot Kinney. The monthly street event returned July 3, with food trucks lining the boulevard. Local operators have asked visitors not to occupy brick-and-mortar tables while eating from the trucks, which is a small etiquette point but a real one if you live on the block.
- Saturday, Artists & Fleas. The Saturday market at The Kinney Venice Beach turns over weekly with vintage sellers, jewelry makers, and vendors that rotate through the season.
- September 27, Abbot Kinney Festival. Canceled two years in a row, the festival is on the 2026 calendar again. If you have moved to Venice since 2023, this will be your first time seeing the boulevard closed to cars for it.
The Coffee Shop, The Cheese Shop, And What Came Into The Retail Gaps
Not every 2026 opening is a full-service dinner room. Emma Chamberlain's coffee brand took its second Los Angeles location on Abbot Kinney, styling the interior as a vintage hotel lobby with green tile and running a set of Venice-only drinks, including an olive oil latte and a tiramisu latte. Next door to their Rose Avenue wine shop, the team behind Vin on Rose took over the former Moon Juice space and turned it into a small cheese and sandwich counter. The daily sandwich list rotates through a jamon beurre, a caprese, a duck rillette banh mi, and a french onion grilled cheese, alongside charcuterie, tinned fish, and cheese by the pound. Both openings sit in the "casual daytime" category the boulevard had been thin on for years, and both are the kind of place a resident actually stops into twice a week rather than once a season.
What Is Still Coming
Two projects will change how the ends of the boulevard feel by late 2026. Venice Place, a 78-room hotel designed by local architect David Hertz, is being built into an existing block at the northern end, with Felix Trattoria anchoring the food component and existing restaurant frontages preserved along Abbot Kinney. At the southern end, 881 Abbot Kinney is a 43-room hotel at the corner of Abbot Kinney and Main Street. Both were slated for completion inside the 2025 to 2026 window per FashionNetwork's corridor review. Overnight guests support dinner service at densities that day-trippers do not, which is the mechanism behind the operator profile now signing leases.
Two other openings to watch before fall: Alisa: Wine & Friends, a modern Greek room from Oleksii Kochetkov, is preparing to open at 1009 Abbot Kinney in the former Plant Food and Wine space, with a shareable menu that includes pork souvla, braised lamb leg, and whole sea bass. Truly Pizza, the Orange County operation known for its three-day fermented dough, has committed to 1239 Abbot Kinney for its third location, which will be one of the larger new dining footprints the boulevard has absorbed in years.
A Word On What Left
Occupancy stability does not mean nothing closed. The Rose Venice announced a December 15 closing date, and Lincoln Boulevard lost Camp Pho earlier this year. Cafe Gratitude also came off the roll of currently operating rooms. Turnover has not disappeared. It has slowed enough that residents can now name the tenant two doors down and expect that answer to still be correct at Thanksgiving.
Reading The Season As A Resident
If you already live here, the useful summary is this: Abbot Kinney has quietly finished a decade-long ownership shuffle, the corridor is close to full, the operators moving in are running restaurants rather than concepts, and the calendar has a real anchor event again on September 27. The street is not the coolest block in America this year, which is precisely what makes it easier to live on.
If you are thinking about selling in Venice this year or want a private read on how the corridor is influencing pricing on the walk-streets and canals, Corisandra Downing is available for a confidential conversation. Get a free home valuation to start.
