If you drive Calabasas Road on a Saturday morning, you already know the block across from Sagebrush Cantina. The farmers market sets up there every week at 23504 Calabasas Road, eight to one, rain or shine, all year. It's the kind of stretch where nothing seems to change for months at a time, then two storefronts turn over in the same season and the whole corridor looks like it woke up overnight. It didn't. Each of those openings is the tail end of a process that started long before anyone saw a sign go up.
Jon & Vinny's, the California-Italian spot founded by chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, opened its ninth location at 23538 Calabasas Road on July 27. The space sits directly across from Sagebrush Cantina, in the building that had been the old Mulholland restaurant until it closed in October of last year. A few minutes away on Las Virgenes Road, Salsa & Beer Mexican Grill is finishing out the former Coco's space near the 101, a project that was first floated back in 2020 and then went quiet for six years before signage finally went up this June. One of those timelines moved fast. The other one didn't move at all for most of a decade. Understanding the difference tells you something real about how this particular stretch of Calabasas actually works.
The Bungalow That Turned Over In Under A Year
The old Mulholland spot closed in October 2025, and by the following month Jon & Vinny's had already announced the move, though a spokesperson told Valley News Group at the time that they were still waiting on permit approvals and couldn't give a firm date. That's a normal place for a restaurant buildout to stall. Permits, inspections, and buildout schedules routinely add months to a project that looks simple from the sidewalk.
This one didn't stall for long. By July 27, the location was open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. The build itself explains some of that speed and some of the appeal: the team designed the space as a small bungalow rather than a standard buildout, with a full bar, a heated back patio, and an attached Helen's wine shop. It's the chain's ninth location, joining existing spots in Fairfax, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Studio City, and elsewhere, and the menu keeps the format that's made those locations popular: handmade pastas, wood-fired pizzas, and a full kids' menu, served diner-style rather than as a formal sit-down experience.
Nine months from a closed sign to a full breakfast-through-dinner menu is fast for a sit-down restaurant with a full liquor buildout. It happened because a national chain with eight existing locations already had the systems, the crews, and the capital to move once the permits cleared. That's worth knowing if you've ever wondered why some storefronts on this block sit dark for a year and others fill in what feels like a season.
The Corner By The 101 That's Waited Six Years
Salsa & Beer's story runs on a different clock. The restaurant was first proposed for 4895 Las Virgenes Road back in 2020, in the former Coco's space near the freeway, and the project never got off the ground. It sat there through the pandemic and past it, an empty storefront that Conejo Valley Guide and other local outlets checked in on periodically without much to report.
Part of what slowed it down had nothing to do with construction. Calabasas officials had to sign off on restaurant use at that specific parcel, and neighbors raised concerns at public hearings about traffic, parking, and whether a busy sit-down restaurant made sense on a lot that butts directly up against the 101, according to civic materials from the Calabasas Coalition. Those are the kinds of questions that can keep a property vacant for years even when a tenant is ready to sign a lease.
Owner Gabriel Huerta, who already runs Salsa & Beer locations in Lake Balboa and North Hollywood serving dishes rooted in Jerez, Zacatecas, finally got the green light and put signage up this June. As of the most recent reporting, he told local media the team was finishing construction and planning to open soon, but there was still no firm date attached. Six years is a long time for a single storefront to sit between a first announcement and an open door, and it's a useful reminder that a "coming soon" sign on Las Virgenes Road doesn't carry the same timeline as one on Calabasas Road.
What Actually Changed On This Block
Here's the part that's easy to miss if you only look at what opened this summer: nothing about the pace of Calabasas retail changed. What changed is that two separate multi-year processes happened to cross the finish line within a few months of each other, both on stretches of road that residents already drive past on the way to the farmers market or the 101 on-ramp.
A few things are worth knowing if you're the one deciding where to eat this fall:
- Jon & Vinny's Calabasas is open now, seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., with a full bar and an attached wine shop for anyone who wants to grab a bottle on the way out.
- Salsa & Beer does not have a confirmed opening date yet. If you're planning around it, it's worth checking their signage or local coverage closer to the date rather than assuming a summer or fall opening.
- The Saturday farmers market at 23504 Calabasas Road keeps running on its own separate schedule, eight to one, regardless of what's happening with either restaurant. It's a fixed point on a block that otherwise turns over unevenly.
None of this means the corridor is due for another wave of openings soon. If anything, the six-year gap on Las Virgenes Road is a better predictor of how these things usually go than the nine-month turnaround across from Sagebrush Cantina. Most vacant storefronts in Calabasas aren't waiting on a chain with eight existing locations and a ready buildout plan. They're waiting on the slower, less visible parts of the process: a permit, a hearing, a neighbor's question about parking that takes months to resolve.
The next time a storefront on this stretch sits dark for a while, that's probably not a sign that nothing is happening. It's more likely a sign that something is happening slowly, the way it did on Las Virgenes Road for six years before anyone outside the process noticed.
If you've got a favorite spot on this stretch of Calabasas Road, or you're curious what else is in the pipeline for this corner of town, Valerie Punwar Associates keeps an eye on the neighborhood the same way you do, one storefront at a time.
