"What's missing from the Hill?" The owners of Promenade PV put that question in large type on the mall's homepage, and they answer it themselves in capital letters: "GOOD FOOD AND FUN!" Next to the answer, they list places that Peninsula families who grew up here would remember: gablehouse, Mulligans, laser tag.
Anyone who walks the boardwalk at 550 Deep Valley Drive this fall can see the bet has mostly been placed already. The Promenade on the Peninsula, open since 1981, is not coming back as a mall. It has been rebuilt as the Hill's indoor town square, a place you go to do something. The buildings around it already use it that way.
The Directory Reads Like an Activity Calendar
Start with the mall's own directory. It sorts tenants into four sections. Here is how the first three compare:
| Directory section | Listings | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Fun & Activities | 20 | LA Kings Ice, Level Up Bowl & Bistro, The Sports Complex, Golf Theory, Urban Youth Park, Regal Cinemas, Equinox, PV Music House |
| Food | 15 | SUGO Social, Terra Mia Woodfire Kitchen, Pho Redbo, Good Stuff, misc. coffee, Dilly D's Delicious Burgers, Fika Fika Creamery, Mochinut |
| Shopping | 5 | Chico's, Talbots, The Game Chest, Conscious Ink, Ryan Art Gallery |
The Fun & Activities list covers far more than the big draws. It also includes a karate studio, a taekwondo school that is coming soon, The Lab Basketball Academy, Fusion Studios Dance School, a claw-machine arcade called Kiddleton and ZenesisX Gaming Lounge. A shopping center that once ran on retail leases now runs mostly on bookings, lessons and dinner reservations.
The change followed a long decline. In January 2025, Palos Verdes Pulse described a mall coming back "after years of largely empty storefronts and shuttered businesses." By then Ruby's Diner, one of the last holdouts, had left its spot next to the rink, and the Starbucks on the Deep Valley Drive corner had closed during the pandemic. The property also changed hands. CoStar reported in November 2022 that the center and its ice rink sold to a local private investor for $64 million.
The Rink Made the Case First
The ice rink showed what could keep this building alive before anyone wrote "good food and fun" on a website. It opened with the mall in 1981 as the Promenade Ice Chalet. It closed on September 16, 2020, and the LA Kings partnered with American Sports Entertainment Company to reopen it. The Daily Breeze covered the grand opening of LA Kings Ice on September 7, 2021.
Through the leanest years, the rink kept bringing in families with a reason to come. Bowling was the next big anchor. Level Up Bowl & Bistro opened on December 22, 2025, with 14 lanes, four of them reserved for VIP members, plus a bar, a restaurant, party rooms and an arcade, according to The Pen, Palos Verdes Peninsula High School's student newspaper. A Level Up staff member told The Pen the venue opened because "over the years, the Promenade has been less populated so we wanted families to come back."
That makes two large activity anchors at one end of the boardwalk, with The Sports Complex beside them. The next arrival will slot in between.
The Restaurants Came in Before the Crowds
The new restaurants did not wait for foot traffic. SUGO Social opened on the second level, across from Fuego Cravings and Conscious Ink, serving dishes that range from bone-in ribeye to stone pot Korean bibimbap. Its website explains the name: "Sugo" means "you did a great job today" in Korean and "sauce" in Italian. misc. coffee filled the coffee gap on the main boardwalk, between Good Stuff and the shave-ice counter, in the fall before the Pulse's January 2025 report.
When SUGO was in its soft opening in February 2025, owner Gloria Lee told Palos Verdes Pulse that the mall was not bustling and the area needed more places to eat. She hoped diners would stop in before or after a movie at the Regal upstairs. Pairing dinner with something to do is the plan for the whole building, and Lee's next project takes it further.
What's Still Marked "Coming Soon"
The directory still has several unopened tenants. One more just opened across Silver Spur Road.
- Mega Looma Epic Adventure Park, Suite 116. This is also Gloria Lee's project. She runs Looma Space, an indoor children's playground in Lomita. What Now Los Angeles reported in August that Mega Looma will fill a 35,000-square-foot space between Level Up Bowl & Bistro and The Sports Complex, with arcade games, bumper cars, trampolines, karaoke, a photobooth and private party rooms. Its own website still says "Coming Soon 2026."
- Riiya Noodle House, Suite 171, and Soup 'N Fresh, Suite 359. Both are listed as coming soon on the food side, with no dates posted.
- K.S. Choi Taekwondo, Suite 261B. This school joins the growing group of lesson-based tenants upstairs.
- Canaan Chinese Cuisine, Peninsula Shopping Center. The neighboring center announced an October 28 opening next to MOD Pizza. A few doors away, Monarch Ink, a new children's boutique at 21 A Peninsula Center, opened next to Baskin-Robbins.
Mega Looma matters most for the thesis. With an adventure park between the bowling alley and the sports complex, that whole stretch of the Promenade becomes one place where you can spend an afternoon.
The Garage the Nutcracker Depends On
The Promenade's role as shared ground is clearest across Indian Peak Road, at the Norris Theatre and the Harlyne J. Norris Pavilion. The Daily Breeze reported in 2022 that neither has patron parking of its own beyond spaces granted from the mall's parking structure. That arrangement goes back to an agreement between Palos Verdes Performing Arts and the City of Rolling Hills Estates in 1998.
In 2021, during the mall's previous ownership, a dispute over those spaces turned into a lawsuit. By fall 2022, barricades had blocked 150 spaces near the theater. After the city sent a letter, they came down on October 17, 2022, removed by the mall's new owners, according to the Daily Breeze. At an August 2024 Planning Commission meeting, a representative of the neighboring Peninsula Center's owner said the Norris had since finalized a parking agreement with the Promenade.
The garage matters most in the weeks ahead, because four Nutcracker productions share the Norris calendar with holiday concerts and dance shows from now through December 20. Here is what Palos Verdes Performing Arts currently lists:
- Ruben Studdard, My Tribute to Luther, November 7
- Ballet des Petites Étoiles presents "The Nutcracker," November 15 at 2:30 p.m.
- PSPA presents "The Nutcracker," November 19 through 22, with six performances, including 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. shows on the 21st
- Classical Ballet Theatre's Festive Celebration: Nutcracker Highlights, November 29
- Top of the World: A Carpenters Tribute at the Holidays, December 5
- Marquee Dance Center presents "Merry & Bright!," December 6
- Palos Verdes Ballet's 46th Nutcracker, December 19 and 20
On a Nutcracker weekend, the family parking for the theater can also sit down to dinner at Terra Mia, book a lane at Level Up afterward or skate at LA Kings Ice. SUGO's owner hoped for exactly that pairing of dinner and a show, and now the garage connects them.
December 12, Straight Down the Boardwalk
The city's parade route runs straight through the Promenade. The Peninsula Parade of Lights runs on Saturday, December 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. It starts at Silver Spur Road and Drybank Drive, heads east on Silver Spur to Roxcove, turns south to Deep Valley, goes west through the Promenade, and ends at Norris Center Drive. The city's entry application describes a one-mile route and expects about 10,000 people. The entry deadline is November 6, the day after this post goes live.
Free parking will be available at Town & Country Center, Peninsula Shopping Center and Promenade PV, and road closures begin at 4 p.m. If you want a seat at SUGO or Terra Mia before the floats come through, plan to be inside the closure zone before four.
The owners' homepage remembers trick-or-treating at the mall at night and a haunted house with a White Rabbit guiding kids through a maze. None of those memories involve shopping, and a parade route through the middle of the boardwalk fits them.
At Lauren Forbes Group, we follow how places like the Promenade change, from lease to lease and season to season, because those changes shape daily life on the Hill. If you'd like to talk about what the changes along Deep Valley Drive and Silver Spur Road mean for your corner of Rolling Hills Estates, schedule a private consultation.