Walk down Catalina Avenue this weekend and you'll notice two things happening at once. The sidewalk sale racks are out in front of shops up and down the block, part of the two-day sale running today and yesterday. And a block down, new signage sits where Gabi James used to be, the Spanish-French spot that closed its doors in late April after eight years in that space. Locals have watched this corner change hands before. What's different this time is why it happened now, and what that timing tells you about how Riviera Village actually works.
What Took Over the Gabi James Space
The new tenant is Martha's, the Hermosa Beach restaurant that's been serving breakfast and lunch at 22nd Street and Hermosa Avenue since 1984. This is the first expansion the current ownership team has made since taking over the brand about a decade ago, and they picked 1810 S. Catalina Ave, nestled between Fringe and Redondo Beach Brew, for their second location.
Co-owner Hilary Condren told a local outlet the business had finally normalized enough after the pandemic years to justify growing. He was drawn to Riviera Village specifically for its proximity to Hermosa Beach and its street-level energy. As Condren put it:
"Their downtown, their heartbeat is on fire."
A few details worth knowing if you're planning a visit:
- The building is 5,000 square feet split across two floors, with the upstairs dedicated to private events, something the Martha's team had wanted for years but couldn't fit into their original Hermosa location.
- Executive chef Johnny De Vivo, formerly of Rolling Hills Country Club, is running the kitchen.
- The menu leans classic American grille: smashburgers, baby back ribs, steak, pasta, short ribs, with a few dishes borrowed from the team's Hermosa Beach Italian restaurant, The Bottle Inn.
- Martha's Redondo Beach is already open and taking reservations, confirmed by their own site listing the new address alongside their original Hermosa location.
Condren has said the team hopes to open three more locations over the next three years, stretching from Santa Barbara down to San Diego. Redondo Beach is the first stop on that map.
The Five-Year Bet Behind the Timing
Here's the part that doesn't show up in a typical restaurant announcement. Around the same time Martha's was finalizing its move, the Redondo Beach City Council decided to extend the outdoor dining deck program in Riviera Village for another five years. Those decks, the parklets that replaced street parking during the pandemic so restaurants could seat customers outside, have been quietly removed in most other beach cities as things returned to normal.
Redondo Beach didn't do that. And according to Condren, that decision was part of what made this particular block worth betting on. A restaurant weighing where to put its next location isn't just looking at foot traffic or rent. It's looking at what the city has already committed to keeping in place. A five-year extension is a signal that outdoor seating isn't a temporary accommodation here, it's part of how the Village plans to operate going forward. That's a different kind of certainty than a landlord's lease term, and it's the kind of detail that explains why a business chooses one beach downtown over another that looks nearly identical on a map.
The Village's Other Clock Is Also Running Out
Riviera Village doesn't run on restaurant openings alone. Right now, two other calendars are closing out at the same time.
The 20th Annual Summer of Music Free Concerts on the Pier, presented by the Redondo Pier Association, wraps its season on August 29. The series has run every Thursday and Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Fisherman's Wharf since July 2, no tickets, no cover, just a stage at the west end of the pier and whatever restaurant you grab dinner from beforehand. Thursday, August 27 brings The Arcadies playing an 80s set, and the final Saturday closes out twenty years of free summer music on the water.
This weekend's sidewalk sale is part of the same seasonal rhythm, one last round of markdowns before fall inventory arrives. The Sunday farmers market at 1801 S. Elena Ave keeps running weekly regardless, 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and it's worth checking the Riviera Village events calendar directly since dates shift from year to year. Earlier this summer, the Village also hosted its 48th Annual Summer Festival over the last weekend of June, a three-day street fair spread across Catalina Avenue, Avenue I, Avenida del Norte and Vista del Mar. That event has been a South Bay fixture for nearly five decades, which puts this year's Martha's opening in useful context. Restaurants change. The Village's calendar of recurring events is what actually holds the place together year over year.
The Neighbors Staying Put
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Martha's is opening into a strip that already has its own identity, and most of it isn't going anywhere. A few blocks in either direction you'll still find King Harbor Brewing Company, Riviera House, Hennessey's Tavern, The Craftsman, and Redondo Beach Brewery, along with newer additions like BeachLife Grotto, the restaurant that BeachLife Festival co-founder Allen Sanford opened in a converted liquor store, complete with a small retail section selling snacks and beach gear. Riviera Village has always described itself as a collection of more than 300 shops, restaurants and services packed into a walkable strip near the water, and that density is exactly what makes one closure and one opening feel significant instead of routine. There's enough continuity here that a single new sign on Catalina Avenue registers as news rather than static.
What This Means If You Live Here
The easy read on all of this is that a beloved Hermosa Beach spot expanded into Redondo Beach because the neighborhood is popular. That's true, but it's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that a restaurant group weighing where to place its next location looked at Redondo Beach's decision to keep its pandemic-era outdoor dining infrastructure in place for five more years, while other beach cities quietly tore theirs out, and treated that as a real factor in the decision. Zoning and infrastructure choices made in a city council meeting rarely feel like they touch daily life. This is a case where one did, directly enough that an operator can point to it as a reason he picked this block over another one that looks almost the same on paper.
That's worth knowing whether you're deciding where to eat this week or just paying attention to how your neighborhood actually changes. The concerts end this coming Saturday. The sidewalk racks will be back inside the shops by tonight. But the decision that made Martha's confident enough to sign a lease here is locked in for five more years, which means whatever comes next probably lands on this same stretch of Catalina Avenue for a reason that has very little to do with luck.
If you're weighing a move in the South Bay and want a read on how neighborhoods like Riviera Village actually function day to day, not just what the listing photos show, John Morgenstern has spent his career working these blocks from Redondo Beach to the Palos Verdes hillside. Let's Connect if you'd like to talk through what a specific street or building actually offers before you make a decision.
