Abbot Kinney Right Now: What Changed on the Block While the Festival Was Off

Walk the boulevard on a Wednesday in July and the sidewalk reads the way it always has. Bougainvillea over doorways, a line outside Salt & Straw, someone locking a bike to the rack at Gjelina. Look closer and the street is doing something it hasn't done in a while. It's turning into a dinner district.

That's the shift worth naming, because it changes how the block will feel by September. For most of the last decade Abbot Kinney functioned as a daytime destination. Shops opened at eleven, coffee moved at a clip, and the restaurants that made the street famous kept a handful of tables loud after nine. What's arriving now — a chef comeback, an out-of-market pizzeria placing its third location on your corner, two boutique hotels bracketing the ends of the boulevard, and a festival returning after a two-year pause — points in one direction. The evening economy is getting the reinforcements the daytime economy already has.

Here's what that looks like in specifics.

The RVR signal

The most-discussed opening on this end of the Westside in late 2024 wasn't in Santa Monica or Brentwood.