On the morning of Friday, March 15, 2019, a receiving manager at Vintage Grocers arrived at the Westlake Promenade store and found it closed for good. She told the Acorn, "People were there painting the windows white to block them out, and there was a sign on the door saying the store was closed." Delivery drivers kept pulling up while staff tried to work out what had happened.
According to a statement from Vintage Grocers, the store closed as part of a partnership with Erewhon Market. Seven years later, Erewhon has finally opened in the Conejo Valley. It didn't take the storefront its deal emptied. It opened at The Lakes on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, in a space that went dark two days after the Promenade's most recent grocer closed. The Promenade space is getting ready for a different natural-foods chain.
One storefront, four grocers
The big grocery space at 140 Promenade Way has been through more tenants in a decade than most of the center's restaurants have.
| Tenant | Opened | Closed | What the record shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bristol Farms | Before 2016 | 2016 | Replaced by Vintage Grocers |
| Vintage Grocers | Fall 2016 | March 15, 2019 | Closed without notice; 85 employees affected |
| Vacant | 2019 | Still vacant October 2020 | The Acorn described the space as a vacancy Amazon would fill |
| Amazon Fresh | Open by August 3, 2022 | April 28, 2025 | About 33,000 square feet, Just Walk Out technology |
| Whole Foods Market | Hiring for "Fall 2026" | — | Announced September 2025; no opening date published |
Vintage Grocers lasted about two and a half years. Amazon Fresh lasted about two years and nine months. When Supermarket News reported the opening in August 2022, the selling points were national brands, produce, meat, seafood, prepared foods and Just Walk Out checkout, plus a grand-opening weekend. As of mid-October 2026, the space has now been empty for more than 17 months.
The deal that emptied it was Erewhon's
The 2019 closing wasn't about a slow store in Westlake. Under the deal as the Acorn reported it, Vintage Grocers' Pacific Palisades store was to be rebranded as an Erewhon Market, and Vintage would keep its flagship, Trancas Market in Malibu. The Acorn noted that Erewhon already had a store at The Summit at Calabasas, less than 10 miles from the Promenade. That's where Erewhon's closest location to Westlake shoppers stayed for the next seven years.
The paper also captured what the closing meant at the register. A shopper told the Acorn:
"I come here specifically for items I can't just get at Ralphs, but I'm not going to drive to Malibu for them."
That's the problem this space keeps running into. Each tenant arrived to serve shoppers who wanted something beyond the standard supermarket, and each one left because of a decision made somewhere else. In 2019 it was a partnership between two small chains. In 2025 it was Amazon closing a store that, according to Conejo Valley Guide's coverage, had opened less than three years earlier. That coverage gave no reason for the closing.
Two closings, two days apart
Amazon Fresh's last day at the Promenade was Monday, April 28, 2025. Two days later, on April 30, Lassens Natural Foods & Vitamins closed its Thousand Oaks store at The Lakes after its lease wasn't extended, the Ventura County Star reported. The Acorn described Lassens as closed "as of May 1," which is the same week, counted from the first dark day.
So in one week of spring 2025, the Westlake end of the Conejo Valley lost two grocery stores at two of its shopping centers. In early May 2025 the Acorn's headline already said who was taking the Lassens space: "Lassens out, Erewhon in at The Lakes." The Promenade space waited until September 2025 for its announcement.
Erewhon took the other one
Erewhon opened at The Lakes, 2150 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, about 16 months after Lassens closed. The Los Angeles Times reported that it is the chain's 15th store, its first outside Los Angeles County, and the farthest north it has gone.
What's there now, per the store's opening announcements and local coverage:
- A Tonic Bar, a café and indoor/outdoor dining
- Regular hours of 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- Merchandise made for this location and an exclusive "Amidst The Oaks" smoothie, with proceeds going to Manna Conejo Valley Food Bank
Erewhon's 2019 deal emptied the Promenade grocery space while Erewhon itself stayed in Calabasas. When the chain finally came to the Conejo Valley, it took the store at the other end of that April 2025 week. The Promenade went a different way.
What "Fall 2026" actually rests on
The Promenade announced Whole Foods Market for the former Amazon Fresh space on September 8, 2025. Less than a month later, the Ventura County Star reported that the store had no planned opening date. The center's Whole Foods page still says "Coming Soon," the same wording it carried at the 2025 announcement.
The more recent signal comes from Whole Foods' hiring pages. Its careers site lists "New Store" positions for store 10897-WLK at 140 Promenade Way. Some postings are labeled "Fall 2026," and a bakery order writer listing says "Opening Fall 2026." The experienced butcher posting uses the same "Fall 2026" label. The center's address is in Thousand Oaks, but Whole Foods lists the store as "Westlake Village CA 91362." That's how the store will probably show up in maps and apps.
Here is what the record shows as of October 12, 2026:
- Confirmed: the address, the former Amazon Fresh space, and active new-store hiring under a fall 2026 label.
- Not published: an opening date, a grand-opening event, store hours, or a list of departments.
- For comparison: Conejo Valley Guide reported that this will be Whole Foods' third Ventura County store, after Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks and The Collection at RiverPark in Oxnard. The Moorpark Road store, at 740 N. Moorpark Rd., is open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, and nothing found in this research suggests it is closing or moving.
Hiring under a seasonal label means Whole Foods is staffing for that window. It doesn't fix a date, and a "fall" opening could fall anywhere between now and late December. In 2022, Amazon Fresh became official through a trade-press report that it was "now open." The first firm date for Whole Foods is just as likely to come from the company as from the center's directory page.
The same pattern a few doors down South Westlake Boulevard
The Promenade isn't the only big empty box in the Westlake area that's being refilled on a chain's schedule. Thousand Oaks' Planning Commission voted unanimously on February 23, 2026, to approve a special-use permit for Club Studio, a 35,000-square-foot gym set to run 24 hours a day in the former Bed Bath & Beyond at 121 S. Westlake Blvd., the Ventura County Star reported. The latest coverage found is from March 2026, and it gave no opening date. It's another approval with a tenant name and no calendar.
Erewhon's arrival at The Lakes went from announcement to open doors in about 16 months. If the hiring label holds, the Promenade will reopen on a similar timeline, about a year and a half after the week both spaces went dark. Until Whole Foods posts a date, the closest stores from either chain are Erewhon at The Lakes and Whole Foods at 740 N. Moorpark Rd.
At Truth Realty, Ivan Chacon follows these changes across Westlake Village and the Conejo Valley and will give you a candid read on what they mean for your street. Schedule a free consultation.
