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Nineteen months after a wildfire ripped through Pacific Palisades, residents poured back into the heart of their devastated community Saturday as the Palisades Village retail hub reopened following a $100 million restoration.
The luxury shopping and dining hub is 99% leased, with more than 40 businesses returning or opening and roughly one-third of its tenants new.
Returning businesses include Erewhon, Blue Ribbon Sushi, Buck Mason and Anine Bing, while local merchants that lost locations in the fire, including K Bakery and Loomey’s Toys, are getting new starts.
“I have been waiting 19 months to say, ‘Welcome to Palisades Village,’” developer Rick Caruso, who launched the rebuilding effort almost immediately after the fire, told the cheering crowd.
“We are in the middle of a recovery, and this is one chapter. It’s a mega-step, no doubt, but there’s many more mega-steps to come.”
The Palisades Fire in January 2025 destroyed more than 6,800 structures, including thousands of homes. While rebuilding has accelerated to more than 1,000 homes under construction, only a small fraction of families have moved into completed new houses.
The Palisades Village complex escaped the worst of the flames but suffered extensive smoke and water damage, prompting a massive overhaul that included rebuilding restaurant kitchens and replacing drywall, appliances and air-conditioning systems.
Caruso recalled the Palisades before the fire as “Mayberry by the sea” and “like living inside a Norman Rockwell picture.”
“And then a nuclear bomb hit,” he said.
Two days after the blaze, Caruso said he gathered his employees and gave them a mission.
“Let’s plant a flag. Let’s bring this back bigger and better and more meaningful than ever.”
Newcomers include celebrated restaurateur Nancy Silverton’s Italian steakhouse Spacca Tutto and Alphabet Bar & Grill, the h.wood Group’s new neighborhood restaurant led in the kitchen by acclaimed chef Tim Hollingsworth.
The roughly 60- to 70-seat Alphabet, named in homage to the Palisades’ Alphabet Streets, serves elevated American classics including rotisserie chicken, burgers, sandwiches and salads.
When Caruso approached h.wood co-founder John Terzian about opening in the Village, Terzian said he jumped at the chance.
“This is our hometown,” Terzian recalled. “We gotta protect it.”
Terzian sees restaurants as part of rebuilding the social fabric of a community where many residents still don’t have houses to return to.
“It’s not the restaurant or food or drink business. It’s about the people business,” he added.
Hollingsworth said he hopes Alphabet becomes a place where returning families begin creating memories again.
“We hope to be a staple in the community that’s not only for right now, but for many memories as new memories are built in the community,” he said.
For Caroline Kedeshian, her Village bakery represents her own family’s journey back.
Kedeshian, who was born and raised in the Palisades, said her family lost its Huntington neighborhood home in the fire. Her mother also lost two businesses, including a K Bakery on Palisades Drive.
Now the shop, which specializes in cakes, cookies and other baked treats, is starting over inside Palisades Village.
“It’s really been so amazing,” Kedeshian told The Post. “The Caruso team has been incredible to my mom”
Kedeshian, a third-year Pepperdine law student, has spent part of the recovery helping fire survivors through the university’s disaster relief program, which provides pro bono legal assistance on issues including insurance.
She has also spent the past year living along Sunset Boulevard, watching her hometown slowly rise around her. But Saturday felt different.
“A piece of normal is coming back a little bit,” Kedeshian said. “It feels like we’re getting a little bit back to the normal.”
The numbers show just how far that return still has to go.
By Aug. 12, rebuilding had started on more than 1,000 Palisades homes.
In July, 1,628 new-home permit applications were submitted, 1,088 permits were issued and 905 homes had started construction, according to the online tracking site Pali Builds. But only 27 homes had received certificates of occupancy.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Traci Park, who represents the Palisades, said Saturday marked a moment she wasn’t sure she would witness after surveying the destruction after the fire.
“When I saw the Pacific Palisades on January 8, I was not sure if we would ever rebuild,” she said.
Since then, Park has battled red tape at City Hall and Sacramento as residents struggled through permits, utility hookups and insurance fights.
That made Saturday’s return all the more powerful.
“To be right here in the Palisades Village, the economic core of this community, with more than 40 businesses, some new, others legacy businesses returning, it is just profound,” she said.
Sue Kohl knows how difficult getting home can be.
The former president and now chair emeritus of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, lost her house completely in the fire.
Kohl, who was among the first residents to rebuild, said her new home is nearly finished as she waits for final utility and city sign-offs. She hopes to move in before Thanksgiving.
She believes the bustling Village will encourage more displaced neighbors to follow.
“I think something like this will give a lot more people the impetus to move faster and to move back faster,” she said.
Among the crowds at Saturday’s reopening were firefighters from LAFD Station 69, the Palisades firehouse whose crews were on the front lines as the wildfire exploded through the community .
The firefighters were treated to the first official scoops from the reopened McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams.
“It’s really good to see the community growing, building back and coming here supporting the opening of the new Village,” Capt. Jeff Brown said. “It’s amazing.”
But for thousands of families, “home” remains a construction site, an empty lot or a set of plans.
Jessica Rogers, president of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association and executive director of the Palisades Long Term Recovery Group, lost her El Medio Bluffs home and has spent the past 19 months helping survivors navigate insurance, federal aid and rebuilding.
Last week, her own family finally got its first glimpse of what comes next.
Rogers received renderings of their planned new home and brought them to her children, who were 11 and 13 when the fire struck.
“They were just so delighted and elated,” Rogers said. “We’re going to build the most fire-resilient home in the Pacific Palisades.”
On Saturday, Palisades Village gave a community still scattered by the fire a place to come home to again.
Caruso acknowledged that the gleaming storefronts cannot erase the empty lots surrounding them, or the years of rebuilding still ahead.
“This is one step,” he told the crowd. “It’s a great step.”
Then he made a promise.
“We will never leave your side,” Caruso said. “We will be shoulder to shoulder till everyone is back home.”
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