Ask a Woodland Hills resident where to grab dinner and most of them will point you toward Topanga Village. That answer is getting less reliable by the month. One operator just swapped its own restaurant concept for a different one before either version served a plate, and over on Ventura Boulevard, an entirely separate cluster of new openings has nothing to do with the Village at all.
If your mental list of where to eat still starts and ends at the mall, you're missing most of what's actually changed.
Topanga Village Picked a Restaurant, Then Picked a Different One
For most of this year, the plan for 6316 Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Suite 1110, the former home of XOC Tequila Grill, was Durango, a second location for the Latin-inspired concept from Boulevard Hospitality Group, the team also behind Yamashiro Hollywood and Udatsu Sushi LA. Owner Freddy Braidi told local outlet What Now Los Angeles the group was targeting an early 2027 opening, joining the original Durango Cocina & Rooftop above the Sanctity Hotel in Rancho Cucamonga, which opened in spring 2025.
Then the plan changed. Signage recently spotted near Alfred's Coffee inside the Village pointed to a different name entirely: Casa Luna, a Mexican concept from the same Boulevard Hospitality Group, with a logo built around ocean, moon, and greenery imagery. What Now Los Angeles reports that Casa Luna appears to be taking the space originally slated for Durango, and that an active Instagram account for the new concept also shows a planned Inglewood location. As of publication, the group hadn't detailed a menu, a design, or a firm opening date for either.
That's worth sitting with. A hospitality group with three existing concepts announced a restaurant, then quietly retired it in favor of a different one, at the same address, before either version opened a door. It's not a sign that Topanga Village is struggling. It's a sign that even experienced operators are still guessing at what this stretch of Woodland Hills wants to eat, and they're guessing more than once.
Saint & Second Took the Lucille's Spot, and Locals Are Waiting an Hour for a Table
While Casa Luna is still a concept on paper, Saint & Second already made the same kind of bet and it paid off. The Hofman Hospitality Group restaurant took over the former Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que space at 6220 Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Suite 1480, becoming the brand's third location alongside Long Beach and Manhattan Village. Executive chef Chris Sanchez and beverage director Chris Martinez built a menu that spans a raw bar, ricotta cavatelli, pan-fried salmon, and New York steak and frites, with weekend brunch and a weekday social hour from 3 to 6 p.m.
The restaurant is currently taking reservations through OpenTable, where a mid-August snapshot showed it booked 11 times in a single day, and diners describe wait times pushing close to an hour on weekend nights with metered, sparse parking to match. That's the kind of friction that shows up when a new restaurant is actually working, not when it's coasting on a good location.
The lesson for anyone still picturing Lucille's smokehouse smell in that spot: that tenant is gone, and its replacement has already built its own following.
Over on Ventura Boulevard, a Completely Different Opening Wave
Here's the part that gets missed if you only watch Topanga Village. Woodland Hills' other new restaurant activity is happening on Ventura Boulevard, inside and around Valley Country Market at 20929 Ventura Boulevard, and it looks nothing like the Village's turnover.
Prose Kitchen & Bar opened nearby on Ventura Boulevard from chef David Gussin, who leads the kitchen and is known in the restaurant for his mentorship of younger cooks, alongside his wife and business partner Molly Gussin, whose background spans community engagement, city politics, and event planning. The dining room seats 50 and opens onto a patio with room for 30 more, an 80-seat space built around the same indoor-outdoor rhythm that defines Southern California dining.
Inside Valley Country Market itself, Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza opened this July in Suite 25, a roughly 1,950 square foot counter serving New York style slices, Sicilian squares, garlic knots, and wings. Chef-owner Daniel Holzman, who started the brand as a small counter in a Downtown LA office atrium in 2021 before building out a Westwood storefront, told the Los Angeles Daily News the team worked to perfect the pies before expanding again. The dough goes through a four to five day cold ferment before it hits the oven. For now the Woodland Hills counter keeps abbreviated weekday hours, open 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, with expanded hours expected soon.
Neither of these openings has any connection to Topanga Village's leasing office, its landlord, or its restaurant turnover. They're two unrelated bets, in two different buildings, by two different operators, that Ventura Boulevard itself can support a sit-down chef-driven restaurant and a fast-casual pizza counter at the same time.
Two Clusters, Side by Side
| Topanga Village | Ventura Blvd / Valley Country Market | |
|---|---|---|
| Recently opened | Saint & Second (former Lucille's Smokehouse, Suite 1480) | Prose Kitchen & Bar (Ventura Blvd); Danny Boy's (Valley Country Market, Suite 25, opened July 2026) |
| In flux | Casa Luna replacing the previously announced Durango at Suite 1110 | None reported |
| Format | Sit-down, reservation-driven | Sit-down (Prose) and fast-casual counter (Danny Boy's) side by side |
| What it tells you | Even a multi-concept hospitality group is still testing what fits | Independent operators betting on the corridor without waiting on mall leasing decisions |
What's Actually Open Right Now
If you're deciding where to eat this week rather than tracking every lease filing, here's the short version:
- Saint & Second (Topanga Village, Suite 1480) is open and taking reservations, with brunch on weekends and a weekday social hour from 3 to 6 p.m.
- Prose Kitchen & Bar (Ventura Blvd, near Valley Country Market) is open, with an 80-seat dining room and patio.
- Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza (Valley Country Market, Suite 25) is open on limited weekday hours, with expanded hours expected soon.
- Casa Luna (Topanga Village, Suite 1110) has signage but no confirmed opening date, menu, or design yet.
What This Means Next Time You're Deciding Where to Eat
The takeaway isn't that Woodland Hills has more restaurants than it used to. It's that the neighborhood now has two separate restaurant scenes developing on their own timelines, and one of them is still actively figuring itself out. Topanga Village's leasing office is mid-experiment, swapping concepts before doors open even as its newest tenant pulls hour-long waits. Ventura Boulevard, meanwhile, is filling in independently, with operators who never had to wait on a mall's decision-making to open their doors.
If your routine still defaults to whichever restaurant happens to be visible from the Costco parking lot, you're operating on an outdated map. The more current one has two stops on it, and the second one doesn't require circling the Village at all.
Homes by Meghan and Christine, led by Meghan Nyback, keeps this kind of neighborhood-level detail current because it's the same local knowledge that matters when you're deciding not just where to eat, but where to live. If you're weighing a move in Woodland Hills or anywhere else in the Valley, make that move. Get your free home valuation and let's talk about what the neighborhood actually looks like right now.
