New Restaurants in Westlake Village 2026: Meet the Owners

Drive down Lindero Canyon Road past The Landing this fall and the building at 32131 looks the same as it always has, glass walls facing the water, patio chairs angled toward the marina. What changed is the name on the door. Zin Bistro Americana closed at the end of December for what its owners called a remodel. It took until April for the new sign to go up: Yār on the Lake, a Persian-Mediterranean concept from the same family that ran Zin, and by their own account, has lived on this lake for more than 40 years.

That detail adds context to a busy year for restaurant openings along Westlake Boulevard, Lindero Canyon Road, and Lakeview Canyon Road.

The Landing gets a new tenant with an old address

Yār means "friend" in Persian, and the family behind it has described the concept as Mediterranean communal dining built on Persian hospitality. What they didn't change is the view. The waterfront table backdrop that made Zin a reservation-worthy spot for a decade is still there. What changed is the menu: Zin’s American bistro fare has given way to Yār’s Persian-Mediterranean dishes.

Yār opened for dinner service on Tuesday, April 14. If you had a standing Zin reservation, this is the address to know for the new season.

A toast bar with two local names on the lease

A few minutes away, inside the Shoppes at Westlake Village at 30760 Russell Ranch Road, Suite B, a smaller concept opened its doors on Saturday, April 11: Toastique, a gourmet toast, juice, and coffee bar. It's a lighter footprint than Yār, morning traffic instead of dinner reservations, but the ownership story rhymes. Two local couples run it, adding to this year's mix of locally owned restaurant concepts.

Stonefire's second act, three miles down the road

The most direct link to Westlake Village's restaurant history is still finishing its build-out. La Gita Kitchen and Focacceria is headed for the County Line Shopping Center at 4619 Lakeview Canyon Road, taking over the former StretchCoast space. It's a small footprint, under 1,000 square feet, planned as a takeout and catering kitchen serving focaccia baked onsite along with sandwiches, salads, and charbroiled chicken, with a beer and wine license for off-site consumption pending.

The names behind it are the real story. Kyle Lopez worked at Stonefire Grill from 2008 to 2020 and served as its chief operating officer before it was sold in 2016. He now also owns Red's BBQ in Simi Valley. His co-owner is his mother, Mary Harrigan, who co-founded Stonefire Grill back in 2000. If you remember Stonefire's early years in this area, La Gita isn't someone borrowing that reputation. It's the family that built it, coming back with a smaller, focaccia-forward concept in the same neighborhood where they started. City council approved the plan in late April, with proposed hours of 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday. As of this writing it's still targeting a late-2026 opening, so watch that County Line storefront over the next few months.

Chain arrivals

The list also includes a chain location. CAVA, the Mediterranean fast-casual chain, opened its own location on Friday, May 15, at Westlake Plaza and Center, right at Westlake Boulevard and Agoura Road just south of the 101. It's a bowl-and-pita concept, open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

It won't be the only one. In mid-September, The Taco Stand, the San Diego-based taqueria chain with locations from Las Vegas to Miami, listed Westlake Village among its upcoming planned sites. No address or opening date has been announced yet, so its exact location remains to be determined.

This year's list includes three local concepts and two chain entries: CAVA has opened, while The Taco Stand has announced a planned Westlake Village site. The year-end mix will depend in part on what happens at County Line when La Gita opens.

What fills the calendar while the kitchens finish

None of this is happening in a vacuum. The city's summer programming runs alongside the restaurant openings every year, Saturday Concerts in the Park and TGIF Concerts alongside Movie in the Park screenings, this year including a Shrek night and a Movie in the Courtyard showing of Casablanca. If you've got out-of-town guests in town on a Saturday, that free programming pairs easily with a wine flight afterward at Stonehaus, or a set at Louie's, which has kept a steady run of live acts through the summer and into fall. The City of Westlake Village posts its special events calendar if you want to plan around it rather than stumble into it.

That's really the throughline here. A resident who's lived near The Landing for years now has a new dinner spot from people who've lived on the same lake even longer. Someone who used to grab a Zin reservation for a special occasion can walk into the same room this fall and get Persian hospitality instead of American bistro fare, from an owner who isn't new to the neighborhood at all. The next few months will add to the picture as La Gita moves toward its planned opening and The Taco Stand's plans take shape.

If you've eaten at any of these yet, or you've got a favorite from the list I haven't mentioned, I'd like to hear about it. Paul Coleman spends as much time walking these shopping centers as he does showing homes near them. Let's Connect.