For years, the rhythm of a Brentwood weekend had a predictable second half. Coffee at the Country Mart, a loop down San Vicente, and then the drive up to the Palisades Village or Malibu for the shops and the skate store and the bagel place your kids actually wanted. That drive is gone. Not because the road changed, but because the shops moved south.
Between January and April 2026, nine new shops opened in downtown Brentwood and the Brentwood Village, 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 in the following month. If you live here, you have already noticed the sidewalks are busier by 9 a.m. What you may not have registered is that the neighborhood's center of gravity has shifted. The Village is no longer the polite runner-up to the Palisades. For a lot of Saturday errands, it is the whole itinerary.
What actually opened, and where
The additions cluster in two zones: the Barrington and San Vicente corridor, and the blocks around Brentwood Country Mart at 26th and San Vicente. A working list, with the details worth knowing:
- Paliskates. The skate shop's founder Erica Simpson relocated after the fires. She said the move to Brentwood was motivated by her desire to reopen in an area close to the kids, and that the Country Mart area was chosen because it still has a little village feel to it. The new storefront is a downsize from the previous location, so the merchandise selection is more carefully curated.
- Great White. The Venice all-day cafe brand brought its second Westside footprint into the Village.
- Neighborly. The Westlake Village food hall put up signage at 11770 San Vicente Blvd, according to a social media post; the food hall offers a curated marketplace where people can order from different menus and chefs under the same order. The concepts inside include burger and sandwich spot Mix Tape, Sicilian-style pizza from The Cheese Store, and Mediterranean grill Mini Kabob.
- Ggiata. The Italian deli everyone in the group chat argued about last year.
- Flour Pizzeria and Cafe, Pop Up Bagels, Go Greek. Three separate food openings, all inside the same four-block walking radius.
- Layla's Bagels and Community Goods. Both queued to open shortly after, per the same reporting.
Add to that Savta, which expanded from the Original Farmers Market to a second, more spacious spot in Brentwood at 906 S Barrington Ave, running the same handrolls as the original with combinations like tuna with truffle and jalapeño, red snapper with yuzu kosho and cilantro, and one with uni, caviar, and toro. The weekday lunch special is an appetizer and three handrolls for $32. That is a real number in a neighborhood where a lunch under forty dollars has become genuinely hard to find.
The Sunday market absorbed the Palisades
The other change is quieter but arguably bigger. The Sunday farmers market at 741 Gretna Green Way, running year-round from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., has broadened its vendor list. A local resident quoted in the Harvard-Westlake Chronicle put it plainly:
"I have seen the Brentwood Sunday Farmer's market expand in recent months as they have taken in vendors from the Palisades."
If your Sunday routine used to include a stop in the Palisades for a specific produce vendor or a baker you have been buying from for a decade, there is a reasonable chance that stall is now here. Walk the west side of the market first. That is where several of the newer additions have set up.
The Country Mart itself, meanwhile, has kept programming a full summer calendar. Recent listings include Mart Littles Story Time on July 1 and July 8 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., World Cup at the Mart on July 1 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., and a Diesel Book Signing by P.C. Verrone on July 2 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.. The World Cup screenings are the sleeper hit. The courtyard fire pit fills up two hours before kickoff, and the food-court queue at Reddi Chick moves faster than you would expect for a match night.
A Saturday you no longer drive out of
Here is a version of a Saturday that would have been physically impossible in October 2024, when the closest equivalent required at least one PCH round trip:
- 8:30 a.m. Coffee at Cafe Luxxe inside the Country Mart. Park in the lot before 10 a.m., which is tricky, especially on weekends, so arriving before 10 a.m. gives you the best chance at a spot.
- 9:15 a.m. Walk two blocks to the Gretna Green market. Produce first, then the prepared-food row. If you have kids, the petting zoo is still there.
- 11:00 a.m. Mart Littles Story Time if the kids are under six. Otherwise, wander to Diesel Books, then Sézane or Goop if you are in that mode.
- 12:30 p.m. Lunch. Options that did not exist here nine months ago: Neighborly for a mix-and-match order across Mix Tape, The Cheese Store, and Mini Kabob. Flour Pizzeria for a slice. Savta on Barrington if you want the handroll lunch set.
- 2:00 p.m. Paliskates for boards, wax, or a birthday present for a nine-year-old who was previously being dragged to Santa Monica for the same errand.
- 5:00 p.m. Back to the Country Mart courtyard for World Cup viewing, or to Ggiata to build a sandwich tray for dinner at home.
The point is not that the itinerary is new. The point is that the itinerary lives inside a walking radius of about six blocks. That is a different neighborhood than the one most residents were living in a year ago.
What is still coming
Two openings on the horizon are worth tracking because they will change the evening character of San Vicente in ways the daytime openings have not.
The first is Montana's. The h.wood Group, which runs Delilah, The Nice Guy, The Bird Streets Club, and Harriet's, is bringing Montana's, a restaurant and lounge designed to evoke the atmosphere of an "exclusive, intimate clubhouse," slated for an early 2027 opening at 11920 San Vicente Blvd. Co-president Brian Toll said the three new locations were chosen in L.A. neighborhoods where locals were looking for elevated dining concepts. Read that with a local ear. Brentwood has plenty of dinner options above $80 a head. What it does not have is a late-night room where you can get a martini past 10 p.m. within walking distance of home. That is what Montana's is being built to be.
The second is the Sézane and Goop-adjacent retail creep along 26th Street. Paliskates picked the Country Mart area specifically for the village feel. Community Goods is following. That two-block stretch is quietly becoming a small, walkable retail spine, which changes what "running errands" means for anyone living east of Bundy.
What this means for the texture of the neighborhood
Three practical observations for anyone who lives here:
Parking is going to keep tightening. A student quoted in the Chronicle noted that while the new shops will draw people and expand community engagement, Brentwood is always busy and residents should expect increased traffic and disruption. The Country Mart lot was already the tightest weekend parking in 90049. It is now the tightest weekend parking with a nine-store waiting list feeding into it. If you live within walking distance of 26th and San Vicente, this is a lifestyle upgrade. If you live north of Sunset and drive down, budget an extra fifteen minutes on Saturday mornings.
The Village is becoming a destination, not just a service center. Paliskates founder Simpson's phrase, "a little village feel," is doing work. The Country Mart has been that for decades. The stretch from Barrington to 26th along San Vicente is now approaching it. That means neighbors who used to know each other from school pickup are now running into each other at Neighborly. The social density is going up.
Evening life is still the missing piece, but not for long. The current gap is the 8 p.m. to midnight window. Farmshop closes. The market closes. San Vicente goes quiet. Montana's in 2027 is the first serious attempt to change that in a way that stays inside the neighborhood's tolerance for noise. Whether that tolerance actually holds is the interesting question for the back half of the decade.
None of this shows up in a median-price chart. It shows up in how far you have to drive on a Saturday, how many people you know at the market, and whether your kids can walk to their own errands. Those are the parts of a neighborhood that quietly determine whether you stay another ten years or start looking. Brentwood, as of this summer, is running in the direction of "stay."
If you are thinking about a move within Brentwood, a sale, or a discreet look at what is available on and off the market as the Village keeps reshaping itself, Colin Aita is happy to sit down for a private, no-pressure consultation and walk through what the shift means for your block specifically.
