What's New at Brentwood Country Mart: Three Notable Openings

"When I dreamed of my dream store, Brentwood Country Mart was the dream location. Two decades on, dreams do come true."

That's Orlebar Brown founder Adam Brown, as quoted by Magazine C, talking about a 30,000-square-foot shopping center built in 1948 that still doesn't have an escalator, a parking structure, or a food court bigger than eight stalls. He said it the week his British resortwear label opened its fourth California store there in June, after Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, and Montecito. Not its first store in the state. Its dream location.

If you live in Brentwood and shop at the Mart on autopilot, that quote should stop you for a second. Big-name retail brands don't usually talk that way about a shopping center. They talk that way about a flagship. And this summer, three of them picked the same one.

Three Firsts, One Address

Here's what actually landed at 225 26th Street between June and this month, and why the pattern matters more than any single opening.

According to Los Angeles magazine, Sézane, the Paris-based label known for its knitwear and its internet-first following, opened its first permanent Los Angeles boutique at the Country Mart. Not a pop-up. Not one of the temporary "appartement" concepts it had tested there before. A real, staying-put store, arriving alongside the brand's fall-winter 2026 collection. Founder Morgane Sézalory described it in Los Angeles magazine as the store she'd "always imagined." Sézalory has been talking publicly about slowing the brand's expansion rather than chasing every city, which makes the choice of Brentwood as the place she stopped moving even more pointed.

Varley picked the same summer to open its first Los Angeles County store, ever, at the Mart. The women's activewear brand, founded in 2014 by Lara and Ben Mead, used this year's California push to open exactly three stores in the state: Brentwood Country Mart, Marin Country Mart in Larkspur, and Fashion Island in Newport Beach. Those are Varley's only California locations. Out of every commercial address in Los Angeles County, the brand chose this one.

Then there's Orlebar Brown, opening June 12 as a fourth California location for a brand that has spent nearly twenty years choosing its real estate carefully, according to Brown himself.

Line them up and the coincidence stops looking like a coincidence.

None of these three needed Brentwood. They could have opened at The Grove, at Melrose Place, at any of a dozen larger, higher-traffic centers with better freeway access. They opened here instead, and two of the three founders said so publicly, in language usually reserved for a brand's most important real estate decision of the year.

What the Old Guard Never Left

The interesting part isn't just what's new. It's what hasn't budged while the new arrivals get the press.

Farmshop is still the Mart's signature restaurant, still running a seasonally changing, California-sourced menu out of the space it's occupied for years, with an adjoining market selling pantry goods and picnic supplies. Frida Taqueria is still doing walk-up-stand-style Mexican food the way it has since it opened. Barney's Burgers is still turning out more than twenty vegetarian options alongside the classics. Reddi Chick has been serving rotisserie chicken and malt shakes since 1979, which means it predates almost every other tenant in the complex by decades. Sweet Rose Creamery, which also runs Cassia in Santa Monica, is still the ice cream stop.

On the retail side, Jenni Kayne, goop (the original Gwyneth Paltrow storefront), Diesel bookstore, Toy Crazy, and Caffe Luxxe haven't gone anywhere either. Neither has the shoe repair shop, the barbershop, or the U.S. Post Office branch, all three of which trace back to the Mart's original 1948 build and, according to the property's own history, remain part of its identity today.

That mix is the actual story. A 1948 shopping center designed by architect Rowland Crawford, developed on a model borrowed from the Fairfax District Farmers Market, still runs its post office and shoe repair counter next door to a French label that just launched a fall collection. The old tenants aren't holding on despite the new arrivals; they are part of what gives the Mart its distinctive character.

Sézane's Airstream Itinerary

The brand's En Route Airstream, a traveling retail concept built around what it calls a French take on the American road trip, was scheduled to stop at the Brentwood Farmers Market on August 16 from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Its itinerary then called for a stop at the Hollywood Farmers Market on August 23 before heading to San Diego by the end of the month.

The Brentwood market itself runs every Sunday, year-round, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 741 Gretna Green Way, at the corner of San Vicente and Montana, one block west of Bundy in front of Ron Nunn Elementary and the Brentwood Country Club. It's a different address from the Country Mart itself, about a mile and a half away, but Sézane choosing to meet Brentwood shoppers there instead of only inside its new storefront says the brand did its homework on where this neighborhood actually spends its Sunday mornings.

Why 30,000 Square Feet Keeps Winning

The obvious explanation for all this is that Brentwood is wealthy, and wealthy neighborhoods attract nice stores. That's true but it's not the interesting part, and it doesn't explain why these three brands specifically framed their Brentwood openings as milestones rather than expansions.

The more useful read is about repeat behavior. A shopping center that still has its 1948 post office and a barbershop that predates most of its retail tenants isn't selling novelty. It's selling a customer base that comes back on a schedule, the same people buying the same rotisserie chicken from the same counter for going on fifty years. For a brand trying to build a real Los Angeles presence rather than a one-season pop-up, that kind of dependable, recurring foot traffic is worth more than a bigger number on a mall's total square footage. A smaller storefront in a place people already trust enough to walk past every week can be part of that equation.

That's also why the pairing of new and old matters more here than it would at a newer development. At a mall built five years ago, a Sézane opening is just another tenant. At the Country Mart, it's a brand betting that Brentwood's decades-old shopping habits will carry its newest collection the same way they've carried Reddi Chick since Jimmy Carter was president.

This Weekend, If You're Going

A few practical notes if the new arrivals have you planning a Mart trip:

• Sézane's fall-winter 2026 collection, including the Will jacket and the Jule jacket in light olive green, is in the permanent boutique now.
• Orlebar Brown's current stock includes Italian-made linens and four lengths of its signature swim trunks, arranged around the store's June opening collection.
• Varley's new space was designed with HÁM Interiors around what the brand describes as ease and familiarity, and it's currently the only place in Los Angeles County to shop the line in person.
• The Brentwood Farmers Market runs Sundays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

None of this requires a special trip. It's the same walk you were already taking. It just has three new stops on it, and a fifty-year-old fried chicken counter that isn't going anywhere.

If you're weighing whether a neighborhood like this fits how you actually want to live, not just what the market report says about it, that's a conversation worth having with people who track these details block by block. The Salazar | Bunnell Group works Brentwood and the surrounding Westside every day, and we're glad to walk you through what a home near this kind of daily routine actually looks like. Partner With Our Expert Team whenever you're ready to talk specifics.