Commons Lane Broke Ground In February. Salsa & Beer Broke Ground In 2020. Only One Is Serving Food.
Two Calabasas restaurant projects have been treated as parallel stories all year: the master-planned overhaul of The Commons and a lone Mexican grill trying to open in a strip mall off the 101. One had a ceremonial groundbreaking with the mayor and a Caruso executive standing shoulder to shoulder. The other put up a paper sign, took it down, and put it back up six years later. As of this September, the family-run taco spot has customers in the seats. The Caruso project, unanimously approved by the city council back in December 2023, still doesn't have its new storefronts open.
That gap is the story.
The Regency at Calabasas Commons closed for good on December 28, 2025. It had already survived one closure, when Cineworld's bankruptcy shut it down in September 2022 under the Regal banner, then reopened three months later under Regency management with new recliner seating. This time there was no reopening planned. It was the third theater to go dark in this corridor in recent years, following closures in Agoura Hills and Westlake Village, which means residents on this stretch of the 101 now drive further for a movie than they did five years ago.
The theater's closure wasn't really about the theater. It cleared the site for Commons Lane, the redevelopment Caruso had been planning since at least 2023. The Calabasas City Council approved the project that December, revised it again in October 2024, and construction on the demolition began in January 2026. On February 3, city officials and Caruso's team broke ground with Mayor James Bozajian, who was also mayor when The Commons first opened in 1998, standing next to Caruso CEO Corinne Verdery. She framed the project around residents who want to stay in town as their needs change, describing buyers who want an apartment without giving up the neighborhood. It's a fair pitch. It's just not one anyone can act on yet.
Here's what a lot of people get wrong about The Commons this year: most of what's new there has nothing to do with Commons Lane. Superba Food + Bread opened back in March 2025. KazuNori's hand roll counter, BLVD Steak, Bacio di Latte's gelato counter, and the Zimmermann boutique all arrived before the construction fencing went up on the west side. These sit in the original 1998 footprint, on the north and south ends near Gelson's, and none of them have been touched by the current build.
Then there's Jon & Vinny's, which opened its ninth location on July 29, 2026, at 23538 Calabasas Road. It's worth being precise here because the address confuses people: this isn't inside The Commons at all. It's the freestanding spot on Calabasas Road that used to house a restaurant called Mulholland before that space closed in October 2025. The new location has a full bar, a heated back patio, and an attached Helen's wine shop tucked into what one local food writer described as a bungalow-style building. It opened, on schedule, with a normal press cycle. No groundbreaking ceremony. No council members in the photo.
Salsa & Beer is the better story, mostly because nobody was watching for it. The family-run Mexican grill first put up "coming soon" signage at 4895 Las Virgenes Road, the old Coco's Family Restaurant site near the 101, back in 2020. The signs came down. The space sat empty through the pandemic and past it. Owner Gabriel Huerta had actually pulled formal building permits years earlier, a detail confirmed in a Calabasas mayoral community letter, yet the buildout dragged for years after that with no visible progress.
New signage reappeared at the same address in June 2026, and Huerta told local reporters the crew was finishing construction with an opening expected soon. There was no firm date attached to that update. But current restaurant listings for Calabasas now show an active Salsa & Beer location with dozens of reviews and a posted closing time, which suggests the doors opened at some point over the summer without much fanfare. No ribbon cutting. No press release. Just tacos, apparently, being served.
| Project | First Public Signal | Status as of September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Commons Lane retail wing | City council approval, December 2023 | Under construction; the developer's own site lists July through September 2026 as the active build phase for new shops |
| Commons Lane apartments | Groundbreaking ceremony, February 3, 2026 | Parking structure underway; apartments targeted for fall 2027 |
| Jon & Vinny's Calabasas | Space vacated, fall 2025 | Open since July 29, 2026 |
| Salsa & Beer | Signs first posted, 2020 | Appears open, based on current listings showing an active Calabasas location |
Both projects were moving through permitting within weeks of each other. Salsa & Beer's owner had pulled formal building permits by January 2024, according to a Calabasas mayoral community letter, which is barely a month after the city council cleared Commons Lane in December 2023. From there the two paths split hard. The taco shop has been serving food for weeks while the Caruso-backed retail wing, with 190,000 square feet of new construction and a dozen curated tenants planned, is still mid-build with an opening window that hasn't arrived yet.
None of this changes your Saturday. The Commons at Calabasas has stayed open through the entire construction process, and the shopping center's own updates page is explicit that the north and south ends, where Gelson's and the existing restaurant row sit, aren't part of the disruption. If your routine runs through KazuNori or BLVD Steak, nothing about your visit changes between now and whenever the new wing opens.
What does change, gradually, is the west side of the property. That's where the paseo and new storefronts are going in, and where the parking structure for the apartments is currently under construction. If you're walking that side of the lot this fall, expect fencing and equipment rather than open storefronts. The plan calls for 12 to 14 new shops and restaurants alongside the 80 apartment units, with landscaping and a family-oriented green space built into the west side once it's finished. None of that changes how you'd order a coffee at Superba tomorrow morning.
The more useful takeaway is about how to read construction news in this town going forward. A ceremonial groundbreaking with council members and a developer's CEO signals intent, not a delivery date. A family-run restaurant with a permit and a crew can, in practice, move faster than a 190,000-square-foot mixed-use project with a full public approval process behind it. If you're tracking any of the other build-outs scattered around Calabasas and the West Valley this year, that's worth remembering before you plan a visit around an announcement date.
Calabasas has a habit of doing this quietly. The town doesn't always throw a party for the thing that actually opens. It throws the party for the thing that's still two years out.
If you're the kind of person who tracks these details because you're weighing whether this corner of the West Valley still fits your life the way it used to, that instinct is worth a real conversation, not another scroll through listings. Larry Calemine has spent decades reading Calabasas at exactly this level of detail. Schedule a private consultation when you're ready to talk about what it means for you.
With more than 20 years of experience in the greater Los Angeles Real Estate market, Larry Calemine has the experience and vision necessary to ensure the successful completion of your next Real Estate transaction. Larry’s vast knowledge of the current market and strong negotiation skills will assure anyone the best possible experience.