A Seabutter Sign Has Been Up at Runway Since Spring. The Opening Date Is Still Unknown.

The storefront next to Urban Plates has had a "Seabutter Coming Soon" sign in the window since spring. If you walk the plaza on a Wednesday evening, or push a stroller through on a Saturday morning, you've probably read that sign a dozen times without a single update. No banner, no ribbon, no grand-opening flyer taped to the glass. Just the same sign, month after month.

That's not a stalled buildout. It's how the Runway rolls out almost everything now, and once you notice the pattern, the whole plaza reads differently.

The Preview Comes Before the Restaurant

In late August, the center ran its annual Taste of Runway tasting event on The Turf, the lawn that anchors the plaza's open space. A single ticket bought eight vouchers, each good for a bite at a different kitchen: Sol Cocina, LOQUI, Hopdoddy, PV House, Jeni's Ice Cream, Joliet, and Urban Plates all served their regular menus that night. The eighth voucher went somewhere that didn't officially exist yet. Dizzy Bird, the rotisserie chicken concept slated to open at Runway later this year, handed out its signature chargrilled wraps to a crowd that couldn't have ordered them anywhere else in Los Angeles County that week.

That's the model. Before Dizzy Bird has a lease sign up long enough to matter, before it has a soft-open week or a Yelp page with photos, Runway lets the neighborhood taste it. The restaurant's first appearance in Playa Vista wasn't a dinner service. It was a tasting ticket at a lawn party, months ahead of its actual doors opening.

Seabutter is sitting in the earlier version of that same sequence. City filings for the space describe roughly 47 indoor seats and 16 outdoor seats, and the chain has confirmed this will be its fifth Southern California location, joining existing spots in Beverly Hills, Glendale, Laguna Beach, and Westlake Village. Those aren't casual-lunch zip codes. A chain that's opened in four selective markets and chose Playa Vista as its fifth pick isn't testing the water here. It's already decided the water's fine. The sign in the window is doing the same job the Taste of Runway ticket did for Dizzy Bird: telling residents something is coming long before the something actually arrives.

Once a restaurant does open, the theater mostly stops. PV House marked its first year at Runway this year with a low-key anniversary gathering on The Turf, not a relaunch or a press push, just a plaza acknowledging that a tenant made it through a full year. The buildup is loud. The staying power is quiet.

Two Calendars, One Plaza

Not everything at Runway runs on anticipation. The Saturday Farmers' Market has operated at the same spot since 2009, which means it predates most of the retail around it. It runs rain or shine, 9 to 2, with organic produce, baked bread, a KidZone for the under-ten set, and a free compost hub staffed by LA Compost. The market accepts CalFresh and EBT, so it works as a grocery stop for anyone planning their Saturday errands as well as a place to wander for an hour.

That's the other rhythm running through the same plaza. The restaurant rollouts are built for anticipation: signage without dates, tasting tickets before opening night, anniversary parties instead of grand openings. The farmers market runs on the opposite logic. It shows up every week, does the same thing, and doesn't need a tease because nobody's wondering whether it'll be there.

Both calendars sit on the same acreage. The plaza can afford to run a slow-burn retail rollout precisely because it also has a market that's been reliable enough for sixteen years to not need marketing at all.

What's Actually Left on the Fall Calendar

The summer programming wound down at the end of July. Sizzling Summer Jazz Nights, the Friday series on The Turf that rotated through country, jazz, and reggae themes, ran its last date July 31. What's replaced it for fall is smaller in scale but pointed in a specific direction: free salsa nights tied to Hispanic Heritage Month.

The series runs three Fridays: September 25, October 2, and October 9, each at 6 p.m. If you missed the first one, two are still ahead. The format doesn't require any dance background. A beginner-friendly class runs from 6 to 7, led by instructor Brett Hoebel, and then a live salsa band takes over from 7 to 9 for anyone who wants to put the hour of instruction to use, or just watch from the lawn with a drink from one of the restaurants nearby. It's free, it's on the same Turf where the jazz series just wrapped, and it's timed to a specific cultural calendar rather than being a generic autumn filler event.

The Saturday Farmers' Market keeps running through all of it, unaffected by whatever's happening on The Turf that week, which is more or less the point.

Why a Center This Size Can Run Two Calendars at Once

Runway isn't a strip mall with a sign for one restaurant and a bench out front. The property spans roughly 630,000 square feet across 420 luxury residences and 246,000 square feet of retail, dining, and medical office space, and it changed hands in 2025 when a Hines-backed fund acquired it. The center's Whole Foods, according to a 2026 case study from that ownership group, ranks among the most frequently visited locations of that grocery chain in West LA. A plaza pulling that kind of consistent foot traffic has the built-in audience to justify running a tasting event for a restaurant that isn't open yet, or throwing an anniversary party for one that quietly made it through year one.

The plaza's centerpiece is a large kinetic sculpture by artist Ned Kahn, built into the tower that anchors the main walkway between the parking structure and the shops. It's easy to walk past without registering it as art rather than architecture, but it's one of several public art pieces scattered through the development, on a site that has its own layered backstory. The land was once home to the Hughes Aircraft Company, and the hangar that housed the construction of the Spruce Goose now serves as Google's Los Angeles headquarters a short distance from the plaza. The aviation history and the tech-campus present sit within walking distance of the same Turf where you can watch a jazz trio or take a beginner salsa class, which is its own kind of texture for a neighborhood that gets described mostly in terms of what's new.

None of this changes what you do on a Wednesday night. It explains why the plaza can afford to let a sushi restaurant's signage sit unfilled for months without losing momentum, and why the same lawn hosts a tasting ticket for a restaurant that doesn't exist yet, a beginner salsa class, and a Saturday market that's been running since before most of the residential buildings around it were finished.

The Seabutter sign is still up. Next time you walk past it, that blank date isn't a stall. It's the same move Dizzy Bird already made, just a few months behind.

If you're weighing a move to Playa Vista, or just want a real read on what a Westside neighborhood's calendar actually looks like month to month, Brooke Bryant can walk you through it block by block. Let's Connect.