Juicy Ladies has opened its newest location at 2727 Ocean Park Blvd. in Santa Monica, bringing cold-pressed juices, specialty coffee and organic breakfast and lunch fare to a westside crowd that includes former regulars from its fire-disrupted Pacific Palisades cafe. The new spot is open daily, offering both dine-in and takeout.
The Santa Monica location was actually in the works before the January 2025 Palisades Fire tore through the community, according to Santa Monica Daily Press. That fire went on to disrupt the original Juicy Ladies location on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades and delayed the Santa Monica project, the outlet reports. Co-owner Magal Nagar said the team is grateful to open in Santa Monica and become part of the community there.
The menu at the new cafe leans heavily into wellness, with cold-pressed juices and wellness shots, specialty coffee and superfood drinks, salads and entrees, protein-rich wraps, and acai bowls rounding out the organic breakfast and lunch offerings, per the same report. Juicy Ladies is inviting former Palisades guests, Santa Monica neighbors and Westside visitors alike to check out the new space.
A Fire That Reshaped the Neighborhood
The January 2025 wildfires that swept through Southern California killed 31 people, burned more than 38,000 acres and destroyed over 16,000 structures, according to The New York Times. In the Palisades Fire area alone, roughly half of the private businesses in ZIP code 90272 were destroyed, per the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute. Even businesses that survived have struggled with revenue loss and ongoing uncertainty tied to customer displacement, worker losses and reduced neighborhood activity, the institute found through interviews with 17 affected small-business owners and managers.
Nagar said the team hopes to eventually return to its original Sunset Boulevard location in Pacific Palisades, and that Juicy Ladies hopes to come back to the neighborhood when circumstances allow. Whether and when that happens depends on the pace of neighborhood recovery, the return of residents and businesses, insurance considerations, and whether the customer base recovers enough to support the cafe again, according to the same report.
Slow Road Back for the Palisades
A year and a half after the fire, many Palisades residents still had not moved back, and the community remained full of burned-out lots, vacant storefronts and homes in various stages of construction, the Times reported. One bright spot arrived when Palisades Village, largely intact after the blaze, reopened on Aug. 15 following a $100 million restoration nearly 19 months after the fire, according to the Beverly Press. The retail center reopened 99% leased, with roughly a third of its businesses new to the property.
Developer Rick Caruso, who oversaw that reopening, said insurance remains the top challenge cited by residents trying to rebuild, and that restoring commercial amenities like Palisades Village is an important part of coaxing residents back to the neighborhood, per the Beverly Press. For a cafe like Juicy Ladies, that broader recovery timeline — not just construction, but the return of customers and neighbors — will likely shape when, or if, its original Sunset Boulevard doors reopen.
For now, the Ocean Park Boulevard location gives Juicy Ladies a place to serve its cold-pressed menu while it waits out that recovery, welcoming both new Santa Monica neighbors and the Palisades customers who first knew the brand before the fire changed their neighborhood.
