When Runway signed its opening lineup back in 2013, the pitch was simple: put a Whole Foods, a Cinemark, and Hopdoddy Burger Bar's first California location in one place, add Panini Cafe, Lyfe Kitchen, and SOL Cocina for variety, then bring in Chase and Wells Fargo so the whole thing looked permanent. Construction wrapped in late 2014. It worked exactly as designed. A brand-new mixed-use address with no track record needed names people already trusted before anyone would drive out to Millennium Drive to try something unproven.
Runway doesn't need that anymore. The leases signed in 2026 read almost nothing like the ones that opened the place, and the difference says more about where Playa Vista is now than any single opening does on its own.
A Sushi Group's Fifth Location, Not Its First
The one arrival this year that looks like a traditional expansion is Seabutter, a sushi and sashimi spot with existing locations in Beverly Hills, Glendale, Laguna Beach, and Westlake Village. Its filing with the Neighborhood Council of Westchester/Playa board (case number ZA-2025-5682-MPA) proposes about 47 indoor seats and 16 outdoor seats, and "coming soon" signage has been up at Runway since at least April. Even here, though, the calculation is different from 2013. Seabutter isn't a national chain establishing a beachhead. It's a five-location regional group picking Playa Vista as its next stop, the kind of expansion decision that gets made based on who's already eating at the other four locations, not a developer's need for a marquee tenant.
The Rest of the Leases Came From Inside the Neighborhood
Everything else opening this year traces back to somebody who was already at Runway, or already living around it.
Dizzy Bird, a rotisserie-chicken concept built around chargrilled wraps, comes from founder Rashad Moumneh, who spent years in marketing and operations at Taco Bell's corporate offices before quitting to launch a food truck in 2015. He signed his Runway lease in March 2026 and started the buildout immediately. Go Greek Authentic Yogurteria is taking the space next to SOL Mexican Cocina, and according to Runway's own senior marketing manager, Beatrice Rosu, the owners are Playa Vista residents themselves. Joliet Café & Bar isn't a new tenant at all. It's expanding, adding LivWell Playa, a yoga studio going into the Free Market space directly across from the restaurant, run by owner Alejandro Meza, a certified yoga instructor, alongside his partner, who holds the same certification.
Two more openings round out the picture without fitting either category cleanly. Artist Made, a gallery-style shopping concept, and Playa Vista Grooming Lounge, a men's grooming studio offering haircuts, manicures, facials, and color services, have both already opened, adding retail categories the center didn't have in its first decade. UPPAbaby, the baby gear retailer, is scheduled to follow by the end of this year or early 2027, filling out a category Runway has been building toward as more of its original 2014 renters start families of their own.
None of this reads like a leasing office chasing brand recognition. It reads like a leasing office that finally has enough foot traffic and enough neighborhood familiarity to let people who already live there, or who already work the food truck circuit, take a chance on a storefront.
Taste of Runway Is How the New Leases Meet Actual Customers
None of these openings would mean much without something to connect a new sign in the window to people actually walking in, and Runway has built that connector into its own calendar. Taste of Runway started, in Rosu's words, "back in the COVID days," when the property needed a reason to get people back to eating at its restaurants at all. It's run every year since.
This year's edition landed on August 27, 2026, and the structure tells you what the event is actually for. Ticket holders got vouchers good at Sol Cocina, Loqui, Hopdoddy, PV House, Jeni's Ice Cream, Joliet, and Urban Plates, plus an early preview of Dizzy Bird's rotisserie chicken and chargrilled wraps before the restaurant had even opened its doors. The first 100 qualifying tickets came with a Playa Vista tee and tote and a discount code, sold through Eventbrite rather than at the door.
"The whole goal is to introduce people to new restaurants."
That's Rosu's description of the event's purpose, and it matches what the guest list shows. Taste of Runway isn't a marketing stunt layered on top of the leasing activity. It's the mechanism that turns a new sign in a storefront window into an actual customer base before the restaurant has built one on its own, which matters more for a founder-run concept like Dizzy Bird than it ever did for a national chain that arrives with its own following.
What This Looks Like Next
The gap between what's already open, Artist Made, Playa Vista Grooming Lounge, and what's still filing paperwork or finishing buildout, Seabutter, Dizzy Bird, Go Greek, LivWell Playa, UPPAbaby, is the clearest evidence of a shopping center that's stopped needing to prove itself and started filling in around the people who chose it first. The original 2013 lineup was built to convince people Playa Vista was a real place worth visiting. The 2026 lineup is built by people who already decided it was.
If you're watching Runway's storefronts the way we do, mostly because a neighborhood's commercial corridor tells you things a comp sheet never will, The Kohl Team would be glad to talk through what a shift like this one tends to mean for property values on your specific block.