Los Angeles is in love with adaptive reuse projects, particularly when it comes to restaurants. It’s become a design staple for neighborhoods like the Arts District and Downtown in the past decade, allowing old details and building footprints to match with modern uses. Perhaps the best example yet is Citizen Public Market, right in the heart of downtown Culver City, which started life as a publishing company and, as of next week, will become one of the city’s most exciting new food halls.
While distanced dining and outdoor eating are the required norm of this uncertain pandemic time, making food halls a troubling venture, the incoming Citizen Public Market team doesn’t seem all that concerned about space. The tall, multi-story building already had plans for a leafy rooftop patio space with peekaboo views of the historic Culver Hotel, plus an open-air back patio for diners to enjoy their drinks and food in the sun. Reps for the city have also allowed for dual alleyway seating and a bunch of tables and chairs right in front of the building, which is on the national register of historic buildings, directly across from all the new business development still happening there from companies like Amazon. In total, there’s nearly double the available seating as there would have been in the Before Times, with the same marble, brass, and steel charm inside.
The former publishing building, which opened in 1929, now boasts half a dozen vendor areas, an upstairs bar, and more, spread across 8,000 square feet. The first to know is Goodboybob, the Westside coffee staple that has expanded in recent years into its own roasting, as well as full meals and wine. The shop will open at 8 a.m. daily, and serve as the front door to the building from the street, allowing diners past to check out the rest of the ground floor stalls. Jolly Oyster is still slated to open in the coming weeks, as is a casual Mexican restaurant and a soul food spot from Alta Adams chef Keith Corbin, though those won’t arrive on the first day of service next week.
The anchor tenant for the market will be Pizzette, the new casual pizza-sandwich hybrid restaurant from chef Nancy Silverton of Mozza and, more recently, the Barish inside the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. Loosely inspired by the Israeli sabich, Pizzette’s top-down stuffed sandwiches will work on the same breads as her small, individually-portioned pizzas at the restaurant — and finished on a wood-fired oven, naturally. There are salads as well, including a heart arugula option with freekeh and Armenian string cheese laces, plus wine, though for now no one will be able to sit and watch the warming action of the oven at the long, wooden, two-sided bar.
The third vendor to open next week is the WEHO Sausage Co., a longtime catering company that has jumped into the retail space in part because of the volatile future of office life. Expect sausages, of course, as well as charcuterie, burgers, and craft beer set into a a black, elegant back wall bar area. A second floor jewel box of a cocktail bar, with deep colors and wraparound views down to the street, should open a bit later on as well.
Citizen Public Market opens next Wednesday, November 18, keeping daily hours for grab and go service and on-site outdoor dining from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., though individual vendor hours may vary slightly. The project comes by way of Rick Moses of RM/d and Jeff Appel of the NOW; Moses previously led the restoration of Grand Central Market a decade ago. Design work is done by NCA Studio, and brand work was done by Jonathan Sample of Modern Format.