Malibu New Stores and Restaurants in 2026: Openings and Delays

On Monday night, August 17, the Malibu Planning Commission took up a 650-square-foot frozen yogurt stand. Go Greek Yogurt had proposed a shop at 23401 Civic Center Way, Unit 2B, in the shopping center anchored by Whole Foods. The commission sent it back without approving it. The problem was 400 square feet. Malibu.FM reported that the overage came to less than one percent of the center's total floor area.

The way through may be a car showroom. The center's owners told commissioners that the Tesla showroom would probably be leaving. That would end Malibu's first and only car dealership, and it would free up enough chain-store space for the yogurt stand to come back with a revised plan.

On the other side of Civic Center Way, Cross Creek Ranch spent the same year adding RH, Birkenstock, and Malbon. One center ran short of room and the other had plenty, and the reason is a rule most people in Malibu shop under without ever thinking about.

The 400 square feet at the Whole Foods center

Go Greek Yogurt is a closely held family company with 10 outlets. Ten is exactly where Malibu's chain-store rule begins. While the company was working through its permits, another chain tenant in the same center remodeled and expanded. That expansion used up the center's remaining allowance, so the yogurt stand would have pushed the property roughly 400 square feet past its limit.

Commissioners argued openly about whether an overage that small should hold up a project, and someone on the dais raised the idea of a waiver. In the end they postponed the decision until the owners return with a new plan. In Malibu.FM's words, Go Greek "has to come back after Tesla leaves."

The center's name has been causing confusion too. The new owners call it "Malibu Park at Cross Creek Center." Malibu Park has been the official name of a residential neighborhood above Zuma Beach since 1962, so the station chose to call the property the Whole Foods Market Center.

What counts as a chain in Malibu

The City Council adopted Ordinance No. 431(a) in March 2018. It took effect April 12, 2018, and created Chapter 17.61 of the Malibu Municipal Code, titled Formula Retail Clearance. The Malibu Times described it as applying to shopping centers larger than 10,000 square feet. City staff reports treat a formula retailer as a business with 10 or more locations worldwide.

A clearance is required when a new formula retail tenant opens. It is also required when an existing one moves to a different space or grows by 200 square feet or more. To get one, a business has to fit inside these limits:

• Store size: 4,000 square feet of gross floor area at most
• Center-wide cap: non-exempt chains may fill no more than 30 percent of a shopping center's gross floor area, with space held by exempt chains left out of the calculation
• Ground-floor cap: in a multistory center, non-exempt chains may fill no more than 40 percent of the ground floor, again leaving out space held by exempt chains

Eight kinds of businesses are exempt and don't count toward the cap:

1. Grocery
2. Drug stores and pharmacies
3. Gas stations
4. Banks and financial services
5. Real estate offices
6. Movie theaters
7. Postal services offices
8. Medical offices

Restaurants aren't on that list. Neither are clothing stores, home furnishings stores, or yogurt shops. That explains why the Whole Foods center can be anchored by a national grocer and still run out of chain-store room. Whole Foods sits outside the count. A 650-square-foot dessert stand belonging to a 10-outlet family company counts against it.

The process for a qualifying store is ministerial. The Community Development Director issues the clearance when the numbers fit. It is reported to the Planning Commission within 30 days and becomes final two days after that report. A store that fits under the cap gets a routine report to the commission. A store that doesn't fit ends up debated at a Monday night hearing.

Across the street, room to spare

The cap is measured one center at a time. Cross Creek Ranch is a shopping center of 10 buildings with 111,489 square feet of gross floor area. Thirty percent of that is about 33,447 square feet available to non-exempt chains.

When RH applied for its space, a city staff report prepared for the April 20, 2026 Planning Commission meeting listed every non-exempt chain at the Ranch:

Altogether the chains on that list come to 17,811 square feet, a little over half of what the Ranch is allowed. Across the street, the Whole Foods center was 400 square feet over. At the Ranch, RH alone was 2,613 square feet, and the report found that it complied.

The Velvet entry shows another way a store comes under the rule. A business can open as an independent, add locations, and reach the threshold while it's already open. The Shop by Wheat shows how close to the line some of these businesses are. Its city report lists 11 locations worldwide: Santa Monica, Anguilla, Dover in New Hampshire, York Beach in Maine, three in Massachusetts, and four in Hawaii. Malibu was its twelfth. By July, The Shop by Wheat had opened at the Ranch with an edit of women's, men's, and children's clothing built around travel destinations. Brandy Melville moved to the Ranch in late May.

The settlement that put the Ranch on its own clock

For a while, the Ranch wasn't under the 2018 ordinance at all. The 2008 Development Agreement for the property locked in the rules that applied when that agreement was approved. While the agreement stayed in force, the formula retail ordinance didn't reach the center. The owner, Cross Creek Ranch Malibu, LLC, argued that construction and approval delays had extended the agreement's life. The city disputed how long that extension should run.

On August 14, 2023, the City Council approved a settlement on a 4–1 vote. Under it, the Ranch became subject to the ordinance, with a one-year exception. Tenants that applied before August 14, 2024 could be approved beyond the normal limits if they had fewer than 10 locations across Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura counties. Up to three of them could take spaces as large as 5,000 square feet, and non-exempt chains could fill as much as 60 percent of the ground floor. The city received $290,000 in payments, plus benefits related to the city-owned Parcel C that included expanded uses, planning and design help, and free parking.

That year accounts for the first group of approvals in the table, including KITH, Le Labo, Ray-Ban, and Pura Vida Miami. The 2026 group of RH, Birkenstock, Malbon, Brandy Melville, and The Shop by Wheat went through under the standard 30 percent formula. Because the Ranch had used only about half its allowance, there was room for all of them.

More may still come. A Cross Creek tenant roster dated July 1, 2026 lists What Goes Around Comes Around in Suite 230, Guest in Residence in Suite 380, and Chit Chat Coffee + Matcha in Suite 410. The Malibu Times described Guest in Residence as the knitwear brand Gigi Hadid, a Malibu High School graduate, started in New York in 2022. The roster shows leased suites, not opening dates.

Where the cap never applied

The 30 percent cap only covers chains, so most of this year's openings with a strong local following never came near it.

The Royal Egg Cafe opened June 15 in Point Dume Plaza at 29169 Heathercliff Road, Suite 106. It was founded by Jaron and Bree Gugliuzza, and a July report listed its hours as 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.

The Sandwich Shop opened at 30150 Morningview Drive, across from Malibu Middle and High schools. Sara Jerabek, who was born in Malibu, runs it in a building her grandparents first occupied. The menu brings back the Torpedo, a sandwich from Pt. Pizza, whose owners gave her the recipe. Sandwiches include the Big Dume and the Zooma Tuna, and many are served on Bubread. As of early September it was open Wednesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Hank's Organic opened at 22601 Pacific Coast Highway in the former PC Greens space, after Malibu had waited more than three years. The Malibu Times blamed permitting, fire delays, and construction issues. It is open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and has a pineapple-slicing machine and a fresh orange juice machine, which the paper said are the only ones in Malibu. As a grocery, it falls in the first exempt category regardless of how many locations it has.

Inside Malibu Country Mart, tenants have been moving around. M. Frederick took the space next to Tra Di Noi that The Malibu Colony left, and it kept its original store as a 50-percent-off surplus shop. Cherry Malibu opened in Suite 13, and The New West moved to a spot facing the lawn.

Some places closed this season. Kristy's in Trancas served its last day on September 9, after 15 years. Rosenthal Malibu Estate ended public tastings at its Newton Canyon vineyard on September 26. Those tastings had stood in for the Pacific Coast Highway wine bar and patio the Palisades Fire destroyed. The winery has not said publicly what comes next for the vines or the wine labels.

Still pending this fall

As of early October, three things were still unresolved:

• Go Greek Yogurt is waiting for the Whole Foods center to bring back a revised plan. We found no reporting since August 18 on a new hearing date or on whether Tesla has left.
• The Cross Creek Ranch pipeline of RH, Birkenstock, Malbon, What Goes Around Comes Around, Guest in Residence, and Chit Chat Coffee + Matcha has clearances or leased suites on record. We found no confirmed opening dates for any of them.
• Buck Mason was expected at Malibu Country Mart in the space Madison Boutique left next to Faherty, "in a few months" from mid-July.

If Tesla leaves, the Whole Foods center will have room for a yogurt stand again. Cross Creek Ranch still has roughly 15,600 square feet of chain allowance left, before counting anything that opened after the April report.

At Malibu Premier Homes, we keep track of how changes along Civic Center Way, from cleared chain tenants to new independents, affect daily life in each part of Malibu. If you'd like to talk through what this fall's openings could mean for the area around your home, please contact us.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.