"I knew that there was a need for a small, local coffee shop since so many had burned down," Prima Cantina owner Nando Silvestri told the Palisadian-Post in late September. "So I thought it would be a good pairing to let him use the space of Prima since it's not used in the morning."
That arrangement describes the whole Palisades coffee map in fall 2026. Most of the cafes coming back are not returning to their old rooms. They are borrowing a restaurant's empty morning hours, cutting their menus, or moving up Palisades Drive to the Highlands. For a resident planning the 7 a.m. coffee run, the old Antioch Street routine no longer applies.
The 6 a.m. counter inside a lunch restaurant
Pali Drip opened on Sunday, September 27, inside Prima Cantina at 15246 Sunset Boulevard. It is run by Eddie Navarro, a familiar name in local coffee, who opened Estate Coffee on Via de la Paz in 2018. Navarro had been looking for a place to open a coffee shop. Silvestri had a dining room that sat empty every morning. The two schedules fit together exactly.
Pali Drip pours from 6 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. daily. At 11:30, Prima opens for lunch. The menu covers espresso drinks, drip coffee, pastries and breakfast items. Two house drinks are already becoming the order to know. The Pali Quattro is four shots of espresso with your choice of milk, dark chocolate, organic raw sugar and ice. The Prima Quattro is the same drink without the chocolate. Navarro makes his own vanilla syrup, and this season's pumpkin spice latte is also made in-house.
Prima was one of the first Palisades restaurants to reopen, in May 2025. Silvestri told the Post that since Palisades Village reopened, "we're very close to prefire numbers." Prima's dining room now earns revenue in the hours before lunch, and Navarro got back into the Palisades without building out a storefront of his own.
The Village opens two hours later
Palisades Village reopened on Saturday, August 15, and two morning businesses reopened with it. Both are worth a stop. Neither is open at dawn.
Alfred Coffee is back at 15217 Palisades Village Lane. It opens at 8 a.m. every day, closes at 6 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and stays open until 7 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The menu has not changed. The shop has been redesigned to reflect where the Alfred brand has gone since its first Palisades store opened in July 2019. Founder and CEO Josh Zad told the Palisadian-Post that the Village's former tenants spent much of 2025 asking the same question: "Open to what? Open to whom?" He was among the first to commit to coming back. His ties to the town go back further than the coffee shop. His father briefly ran Marquez Market in the mid-1980s and opened Video 2001 on Monument Street.
K Bakery reopened at 1061 Swarthmore Avenue, in the space Jemma Pizzeria used before the fire. It is open Tuesday through Sunday, so Monday is the day to go elsewhere. The Los Angeles Times reported English muffins, croissants, pretzels, loaves and cinnamon buns at opening.
K Bakery shows the smaller-format return most clearly. Founder Kim Kedeshian has opened a mostly to-go shop with some patio seating out front. She has trimmed the menu to the bakery's most popular items, added more bread such as focaccia and sourdough, and brought back the striped cake box from the bakery's early days. She calls the approach "simple is scalable," with all of her attention on one location. Before the fire, the same owner ran a full restaurant and marketplace in the Highlands Plaza on Palisades Drive.
| Where | Address | Morning hours on record | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pali Drip at Prima Cantina | 15246 Sunset Blvd | 6 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. daily | Open since September 27, 2026 |
| Alfred Coffee | 15217 Palisades Village Lane | Opens 8 a.m. daily | Open since August 15, 2026 |
| K Bakery | 1061 Swarthmore Ave | Tuesday through Sunday | Open since August 15, 2026 |
| Starbucks, Highlands | 514 Palisades Dr | Check before going | Reopened July 28, 2025 |
| Starbucks inside Vons | 17380 Sunset Blvd | Not listed separately | Listed as an in-store service |
| Café Vida | 548 Palisades Dr | Not yet announced | Listed as "Coming Soon Fall 2026" |
The Highlands is picking up the corridor's role
Before the fire, the everyday café in the Palisades sat downtown. Café Vida was in the Business Block building on Antioch Street from 2002 until January 2025. Its return is headed up the hill. Co-owners Luis Castaneda, Marcelo Marolla and Francisco Cornejo have signed a long-term lease at 548 Palisades Drive in Highlands Plaza. In May, the Palisadian-Post reported a target opening of October.
As of mid-October, that date has not been met. Café Vida's own website still lists the Pacific Palisades location as "Coming Soon Fall 2026" and asks visitors to "stay tuned for updates." When it does open, the room will be smaller than the Antioch space, with fewer tables inside. The owners expect a new patio to make up the difference. They have also said plainly that they expect less foot traffic than they had in the commercial core. They told the Post they are coming back because of the brand and the relationships they built over two decades. Castaneda described the concept as everyday food for daily regulars, the same format the café ran on Antioch.
The Highlands already has a working coffee counter. The Starbucks at 514 Palisades Drive reopened on Monday, July 28, 2025. Starbucks posted a barista opening for that store on October 3, 2026. The only published hours for it date from the 2025 reopening, so check before going. Down on Sunset, the Vons at 17380 Sunset Boulevard lists an in-store Starbucks among its services.
Why the old addresses are still empty
Each of these returns is a person coming back to the same customers at a different address. Navarro left Via de la Paz and now works out of Prima's dining room. K Bakery started in 2011 in a small plaza on Sunset near Pacific Coast Highway, moved to Highlands Plaza in 2014, and is now on Swarthmore. Café Vida is going from Antioch to Palisades Drive.
The old rooms are not ready, and in some cases the decision is not the tenant's. What happens to the Business Block building on Antioch is out of Café Vida's hands. Its lease was terminated, and the Post reported that the site could be rebuilt, sold, or left vacant. The same May report noted that the town was still waiting to hear plans from Ralphs and Gelson's. So the operators with the deepest local ties are taking the rooms that are available now. Those are the Village's rebuilt storefronts, Highlands Plaza, and a Sunset Boulevard restaurant's unused mornings.
That explains the current map. The earliest coffee in town is on Sunset at 6 a.m., in a dining room that serves lunch later. The Village fills in from 8 a.m., with K Bakery closed on Mondays. The Highlands has Starbucks now, and Café Vida is due once its build-out is finished. A morning that used to happen on one walkable corridor now happens across three parts of town.
For a resident, that comes down to a short route:
- Before 8 a.m.: Pali Drip on Sunset, from 6 a.m.
- After 8 a.m.: Alfred Coffee or K Bakery in the Village, Tuesday through Sunday for the bakery.
- Watch for: Café Vida's opening announcement at 548 Palisades Drive. Its site says it will post updates there.
We follow which Palisades rooms are open, which are borrowed, and which are still waiting, because the same details shape how a home here is valued and presented. If you are weighing a move back, a rebuild, or a sale in Pacific Palisades, The DeWalt Group offers quiet, informed guidance on what the town looks like today. Partner With Our Expert Team.
