The Grove Has Always Been the Shopping Destination L.A. Deserves
Last November, for my first in-theater movie since the beginning of the pandemic, I saw a late afternoon showing of Dune at the Grove, the outdoor "fashion, shopping, dining, and lifestyle destination" smack dab in the middle of Los Angeles. Imagine my surprise when, upon exiting, a gentle snow was falling, despite temperatures in the mid-70s. It was, of course, a bit of stagecraft deployed by owners of the shopping complex: flecks of blown soap suds that are released on a schedule during the lead-up to Christmas, all in service of creating a picture-perfect wintertime backdrop to our holiday shopping. It’s a neat trick worthy of a movie studio backlot—and a lens through which to understand one of LA’s unlikeliest destinations—both of which the Grove, in some ways, is.
The 575,000-square-foot shopping center, which opened 20 years ago this month, takes the best of certain Southern California institutions and brings them together: the fantasy of a studio set, the magic of an amusement park, and the shrewd capitalistic ingenuity of a mall. While it’s adjacent to LA’s celeb-centric West Hollywood neighborhood, and next door to Television City, where The Price Is Right is filmed (you can sometimes see audience member hopefuls waiting in line out front), it’s styled as a quaint village main street. The complex’s owner, the billionaire Rick Caruso, who is currently running for L.A. mayor, said he modeled it after Charleston, South Carolina's King Street. It even comes with a storybook town square, a small park, and trolley, complete with a conductor who clangs a bell.
Like so many beloved institutions, the Grove strong-armed its way into the city’s embrace. In my memory it just magically appeared one day, and my first thought was that it was wholly unnecessary. After all, the Beverly Center, with its Pompidou-like facade, was a mere stone’s throw away. Plus, it was encroaching on the territory of a long-time establishment, the much-adored outdoor foot court and grocers known as the Original Farmers Market. But the first time I went to the Grove I was immediately won over. Pretty people happily shopping in their picturesque (albeit ersatz) hamlet—what’s not to love?
The Grove benefitted from a bit of good timing, opening just as US Weekly and Perez Hilton reframed the act of celebrities shopping from mundane errand to action sport. Suddenly Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton on Robertson Boulevard—or at the Grove—became news. Social media and e-commerce were a ways off, so the Grove was the perfect set onto which one could act out their aspirational dreams. And because it’s in the heart of Los Angeles, and it already looks like a set, it has hosted segments from shows like Extra and Dancing With the Stars. One can even trace the rise and fall of certain retail empires through the Grove; FAO Schwartz, an original anchor, became its first casualty when the toy store filed for bankruptcy. A similar fate befell Abercrombie & Fitch. Now the Apple Store, Nike, and Brandy Melville have replaced them.
I hear plenty of critiques of the Grove—it’s a shrine to commerce, it looks fake, and so on. But those things could well be said of L.A. itself. And, as any good Angeleno knows, mall culture—especially outdoor mall culture—has long been a crucial part of our city’s cultural experience (just look to films like Valley Girl, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Clueless). This is a city dedicated to shopping, to being in the sun, a city transfixed by appearances—the Grove is a love letter to all this. In the same way that the Beverly Center was, in a way, the center of my high school life, I see young people flock here to do what teens do: mope around or flirt. During the early days of the pandemic, I would walk to the Grove for a little divertissement and was tickled to see skater boys being chased away by jowly security guards. Some things never change.
Despite being a successful real estate developer, Caruso, for his part, has said he started as an outsider and that’s why his vision of the Grove has won so many people over. “The greatest gift I had when I got into this business is that I had no clue what the rules were,” he told the LA Times in 2007. “I was building things I thought I would enjoy, and that other people would enjoy. I love hanging out and people-watching and feeling like you’re in a mix of things going on. You go to New York and you feel like you’re in the right place. That’s what I was trying to tap into on these properties.”
In recent years, e-commerce has eroded the influence of the traditional retail experience, but the Grove still remains a destination. According to a 2013 Vanity Fair story, it welcomes 18 million guests annually—more than Disneyland. That’s thanks to its dedication to a little old fashioned razzle dazzle. In mimicking the design of a small town, it predicted the age of the “Instagram moment”; it’s a place to be seen, one of LA”s foundational raisins d’etre. A friend of mine says she loves to grab a glass of wine, sit by the fountain, and enjoy the human spectacle unfold around her. “It’s great people watching,” she assures me. Personally, I love the D-list celebrity sightings, like the times I spotted Brooke Burke or Audrina from The Hills; there’s even an Instagram account dedicated to chronicling famous faces at The Grove.
The Grove, it can seem, succeeds despite itself. In a town with plenty of shopping districts (Rodeo Drive) and other outdoor retail experiences (Third Street Promenade), it’s less glamorous than one might expect. Its store assortment is a bit desultory—an Apple store here, a Banana Republic there—when it’s not downright Middle American in its tastes (Cheesecake Factory and Barnes & Noble, anyone?). You can indulge in those if you’re feeling silly (and who doesn’t love occasionally cracking open the Cheesecake Factory’s tome of a menu?) or meander next door to the Farmers Market (don't miss the donuts and poboys). In a nutshell, that’s the Grove's unexpected appeal: in a town obsessed with appearances, it's unabashedly, unselfconsciously, uncool. Which, of course, makes it kind of cool.
“Even though the Grove is a nightmarish epicenter of consumerism, for me—an L.A. native—it still cuts deep with nostalgia,” says Angeleno Angie Nagle who works in advertising. She remembers the pre-Grove era, when the plot of land hosted a small amusement park, and an antique mall where she collected miniatures. “I don’t miss those things, but I miss being an excited kid impressed by the little things. Now at thirty-something, I like that the Grove still impresses me."
And why wouldn't it? The Grove isn't just a mall. It’s a mall that snows.
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