Where Can You Get Morning Coffee in Pacific Palisades Right Now?

The newest coffee shop in Pacific Palisades doesn't have a storefront. Since Sunday, September 27, Pali Drip has been making espresso inside Prima Cantina at 15246 Sunset Boulevard, from 6 a.m. until 11:30 a.m., when the restaurant takes the room back for lunch.

That arrangement sums up how the fall 2026 coffee map came together. The cafes that anchored the old commercial core haven't been rebuilt where they stood. Coffee has come back wherever someone had a room, a lease or a free morning slot, and the result is a map that looks very little like the pre-fire one.

A Restaurant's Empty Mornings

Eddie Navarro isn't new to this. He opened Estate Coffee on Via de la Paz in 2018. When he went looking for a way back into the Palisades, he connected with Nando Silvestri, who owns Prima Cantina.

Silvestri described the deal plainly in the Palisadian-Post. "I knew that there was a need for a small, local coffee shop since so many had burned down. 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."

The host restaurant has its own recovery story. Prima Cantina reopened in May 2025, one of the first restaurants to come back. Silvestri told the Post he nearly gave up because so few residents were living nearby. He said business improved month by month, and that since Palisades Village reopened, Prima is "very close to prefire numbers."

The menu covers espresso drinks, drip coffee, pastries and breakfast. Navarro makes his own vanilla syrup and a homemade pumpkin spice latte. The signature drink is the Pali Quattro: 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.

The shared lease explains the schedule. Pali Drip opens earlier than any other coffee counter confirmed open in town this fall and closes before most places serve lunch, because the room has another job by midday.

The Fall 2026 Coffee Map

Here is where each option stands as of early October, with how firmly its status is confirmed.

The bottom two rows come from a reopened-business directory the Palisadian-Post published in May 2026. Neither has a fall update that confirms current hours, so call before you plan a morning around them.

Where the Map Moved

Look at the addresses. The coffee that's back is concentrated in two places, Palisades Village and the Highlands Plaza at Palisades Drive and Sunset. Neither is where the old coffee corridor ran.

Palisades Village reopened on August 15, 2026, and that brought Alfred and K Bakery back to the Swarthmore and Village Lane blocks. We covered the full tenant mix in what opened at Palisades Village on August 15. If you live close enough to walk there, our guide to neighborhoods walkable to Palisades Village sets out the distances.

The Highlands Plaza is the clearest example of the move. In its September 4 review of the commercial recovery, the Palisadian-Post said the center "seems to be thriving," with Starbucks, Moku Sushi, Spruzzo and Gerry Blanck's Martial Arts Center all operating, and Café Vida expected in October. We wrote about how that plaza came back one tenant at a time in our Highlands Plaza piece.

Café Vida's return shows the trade-off most directly. The restaurant spent 23 years on Antioch Street, from 2002 until the fire destroyed its space in the Business Block building in January 2025. Co-owners Luis Castaneda, Marcelo Marolla and Francisco Cornejo are reopening at 548 Palisades Drive, in a former restaurant space that needs build-out work, including a new patio.

The owners told the Post that the Highlands location will get less foot traffic than Antioch did, and that the decision to come back wasn't mainly financial. They cited the brand and two decades of relationships in the community. As of early October, we haven't seen confirmation that the doors are open. October remains the announced month.

What Hasn't Come Back

Several names from the old morning routine have no announced return.

• Caffè Luxxe. Eater LA reported that its Pacific Palisades location was destroyed. We found no reopening date.
• Starbucks at Sunset and Swarthmore. Palisades News reported that the store and its neighbors were gone after the fire. It's a different store from the one now operating in the Highlands.
• Café Vida on Antioch. The original space is gone, and the Highlands address replaces it.
• Estate Coffee. Navarro's return is under the Pali Drip name, inside someone else's restaurant. The Post's reporting doesn't describe a separate reopening of Estate on Via de la Paz.

The gaps line up with the commercial core along Antioch, Via de la Paz and the Sunset blocks near Swarthmore, where vacant lots still outnumber rebuilt storefronts. The coffee that has returned did it by finding space somewhere else.

The Same Idea, After Dark

The borrowed-space model also showed up in the evening, two days before Pali Drip opened. On Friday, September 25, Palisades Towne Hall held its launch party at 861 Via de la Paz, on one of the commercial lots that still shows fire damage.

Palisadian Brian Garrett started the project out of frustration with the slow redevelopment of the commercial district. He designed it as a crowdfunded nonprofit pop-up that can move from empty lot to empty lot until developers are ready to rebuild. He partnered with Scott Saunders of Vista Engineering.

At the launch, green shipping containers lined the lot. One poured wine from Pali Wine Co. and beer from Tarantula Hill Brewing of Thousand Oaks, and the other sold Towne Hall merchandise. Food trucks from CHX and Gracias Señor served dinner, Flour Pizzeria boxes covered the tables, and a Creamy Boys Ice Cream cart worked the crowd.

Towne Hall isn't open to the public yet. As of the Post's September 28 report, Garrett could host private parties and events but was still waiting on permits. His team was exploring temporary nonprofit permits and tasting room licensing. We found no update since then confirming public hours.

Pali Drip in a restaurant's empty morning hours, Café Vida in a vacant Highlands space, and Towne Hall on a lot waiting for its builder all follow the same pattern. Each found a gap in someone else's schedule or property and filled it.

What Comes Next on the Map

More changes are scheduled. The Post's September commercial review reports that Erewhon is set to open at Palisades Village in January 2027, which would give the Palisades two major grocery stores alongside Vons. The same review notes that three of the four property owners in the Marquez Knolls commercial district have announced plans to rebuild. It also points out that having several owners with different insurers tends to slow the process.

Navarro told the Post his first priority is "the Palisadian people, the community and families coming into our place," and that he'll see where things go from there. For now, the earliest confirmed cup in town is poured at 6 a.m. on Sunset Boulevard, in a room that switches to lunch service at 11:30.

The return of everyday places like these shapes how each part of the Palisades feels to live in, and that can affect when it makes sense to sell, hold or rebuild. If you'd like to talk through how the commercial recovery near your street affects your plans, The Cilic Group is glad to help. Request a confidential consultation.