If you live here, you already know The Commons feels different this summer. Fencing along the western edge, cranes over what used to be the office block, a valet stand near SUGARFISH on weekends. The center of town is mid-rebuild, and the natural instinct is to assume the calendar has thinned out with it.
The opposite is happening. Calabasas Road, Las Virgenes, and Park Sorrento are absorbing what The Commons temporarily can't, and the August civic calendar is anchored to the lake rather than the mall. Here is what has actually opened, what is opening next, and where the month is worth spending.
The Commons, mid-rebuild
Work on the West Village portion of The Commons began in January 2026. The current July through September update confirms construction is underway on new shops, restaurants, and a parking structure attached to the planned apartment homes. Existing tenants are open. Surface parking is still available, and weekend valet is running near SUGARFISH from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Two openings inside the property are worth flagging if you have not been through in a few months:
- Superba Food + Bread at 4799 Commons Way. The American Gonzo team's third Superba, designed by the Klein Agency across an 1,800-square-foot footprint with room for 100. The Calabasas menu carries the Grain Bowl and the Lots of Grains Hotcake from the Venice original, plus location-only additions: an Egg White Frittata, Superba Hash Browns with Osetra caviar, Bluefin Tuna Carpaccio, and a Market Vegetable Fritto Misto. Sunday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday until 10.
- Cheesesteaks by Matū, which opened Tuesday, July 14 at 4799 Commons Way, Suite I, next to HiHo Cheeseburger. One item done deliberately: a 100% grass-fed Wagyu Philly with First Light Farms beef, Cooper Sharp, grilled onions, a long hot pepper, on a custom seeded bun, with house-made chips on the side. Daily 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- HiHo, SUGARFISH, and the anchor tenants continue to operate normal hours through the West Village work.
- Valet weekends near SUGARFISH make sense to plan around if you are picking up rather than sitting down.
The property is functioning. It is not the room you are hosting the evening in this summer.
Calabasas Road is doing the heavy lifting
Old Town has been picking up storefronts on its own timeline, and the current lineup reads like a working town rather than a preserved one. The Mulholland has become a reliable reservation, with the focaccia and cheese fondue and the Petaluma chicken doing the loudest word-of-mouth work. Yume Sushi Bar opened its second location on Calabasas Road and is closer to the counter-driven Shibuya format than the strip-mall omakase most of the Valley defaults to. 10 Speed Coffee remains the pre-hike stop most residents already know by name. The Saturday Calabasas Farmers Market still runs in Old Town, and it is still the reason parking gets tight after 9 a.m.
The bigger news on this stretch is what is coming. Jon & Vinny's is hiring for its new location at 23538 Calabasas Road, directly across from Sagebrush Cantina. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo's California-Italian format, handmade pastas, wood-fired pizzas, and produce-driven plates in a diner-style room, is what the east end of Old Town has been missing since the Sagebrush corner stopped drawing evening traffic on its own. Once it opens, the walk from the Leonis Adobe Museum at 23537 Calabasas Road to a full dinner service is roughly a block. The museum's own summer programming, Lil' Ranchers on Tuesday mornings from 9:30 to 11:30 through August 4, keeps the block active during the day.
The pattern is worth naming. When The Commons pauses, Old Town gets the walk-in traffic that would otherwise sit at the fountain. The tenants absorbing that traffic are, for the most part, independent operators rather than national brands.
One more arrival, on Las Virgenes
The other opening residents keep asking about sits outside both Old Town and The Commons. Salsa & Beer Mexican Grill has signage up at 4895 Las Virgenes Road, in a space that was in the works back in 2020 and never opened. Owner Gabriel Huerta confirmed to What Now Los Angeles that construction is finishing and the restaurant is opening soon. The group runs four other locations, one in Lake Balboa and three in North Hollywood, and cooks out of a Jerez, Zacatecas playbook rather than the generic California-Mex template most of the corridor already carries. If the North Hollywood volume translates, this becomes the busiest room on Las Virgenes at lunch inside a month of opening.
August, keyed to the lake
The August calendar this year has an unusual shape. The events worth protecting are civic, they are dated, and most of them are free. Calabasas Lake is private the rest of the year and opens to the public only during City-sponsored concerts, which is why the concert dates matter more than they would in a town with permanent lake access.
- Tuesday, August 4, 6 to 8 p.m. National Night Out returns to the Civic Center at 100 Civic Center Way. Music, food, and the interactive law enforcement vehicles the kids remember from last year. Free.
- Through Friday, August 8. The Calabasas Beach Bus continues Monday through Friday between Calabasas and Zuma at $5 round trip. Bikes are first-come, first-served, buses are wheelchair accessible, and current stop times are worth confirming against the city page rather than the older printed timetable.
- Sunday, August 23, 6 p.m. The final Calabasas Lake concert of the summer. Free, and the only remaining public window into the lake until next year's series.
Three dates. One of them is the last chance at the lake for twelve months. If you sort your August around anything, sort it around the 23rd.
A resident's Saturday, sequenced
The version of an August Saturday that uses what is actually open right now runs east to west and ends late.
Coffee at 10 Speed by 8:30. Farmers Market in Old Town before 10, when the parking is still findable. A pass through Blackbird General Store on the way back to the car. If the kids are with you, a Leonis Adobe walk-through for the animals costs nothing on a non-event day. Lunch at Cheesesteaks by Matū or a Superba pastry and second coffee at The Commons, depending on whether the valet line has started yet. Late afternoon at home to rest. Chairs, blanket, and picnic pickup back to Park Sorrento in time for the 6 p.m. concert on the 23rd. Dinner is the picnic. The lake sets the pace.
The interesting thing about Calabasas this summer is not what is under construction. It is which rooms in town are absorbing the overflow, and how quickly.
For residents who bought here in the last five years, this is the first summer that has tested the assumption that The Commons is the town center by default. The answer, at least until the West Village finishes, is that Old Town has been ready for this for a while. The new arrivals on Calabasas Road and Las Virgenes are betting on that same shift.
If you are thinking beyond the summer, and want a read on how these openings and the West Village timeline are affecting values on the streets closest to each corridor, Steve Shanks has been working this market long enough to tell you what actually moves the number and what is background noise. Request a free home valuation when you are ready.
