By 3 p.m. on April 22, the egg guy was almost out of eggs.
Angel Iturbide had hauled four boxes of Markowicz Farms eggs to a folding table on Green Lane, figuring that would get him through a five hour shift. He was nearly sold out two hours in. Down the block, Kathleen and Jessica Altobelli, a mother and daughter who live less than a mile away, had already filled a bag with tamales from Original Tamale Co., almond butter from Avila and Sons Farms, and hummus from Brother's Products, and were plotting to come back next week for a Cinnies cinnamon roll after missing out on one this time. More than 2,000 people walked a single closed block of Green Lane that afternoon. The people running it had budgeted for 300 to 700.
That mismatch between what was planned and what showed up is the real story of North Redondo this year, and it says something about the neighborhood that no amount of new paint on the South Bay Galleria will.
The Corner That Waited on the Galleria Longest
For most of the last decade, if you wanted to know what was coming to North Redondo's commercial spine, the answer was always some version of "the Galleria, eventually." The city approved a master redevelopment plan for the mall back in 2019. Current owner Kennedy Wilson has since moved to demolish part of the property near the old Nordstrom wing to make room for a mixed-use project with roughly 350 apartments in a building rising three to eight stories. The Redondo Beach Planning Commission signed off on phase two of that plan in August 2025. As of the most recent public update, the city still has not announced a construction start date, and there are still more phases to clear.
Meanwhile, the mall lost Nordstrom, Forever 21, Bath & Body Works, Claire's, and GameStop, and the AMC on the third floor kept running for whoever was still coming through the doors. It's the kind of slow, institutional churn that residents can watch for years without anything visibly changing on the ground.
North Redondo didn't wait for it. A few blocks away, on the same Artesia corridor, residents built something on their own timeline instead.
Six Months From Idea to Sellout
The market's origin is about as grassroots as it gets. Resident Jim Mueller had been showing up at Redondo Beach city council meetings since the summer of 2025, pushing for more family-oriented businesses on Artesia. In early October, he met Teresa Mitchell, a self-employed land-use and regulatory permitting consultant, at a council meeting where she was speaking on parking reform along the same corridor. By October the two had formed an organizing committee with no name yet attached. By the time the market opened in April, that committee had incorporated as a nonprofit called OurNRB and lined up state certification for a weekly farmers market.
Their first pick for a location, the open easement where power lines cross Artesia, was a nonstarter. Southern California Edison wouldn't permit it, worried a booth canopy could blow into the high voltage lines overhead. They settled instead on Green Lane, the block between Artesia Boulevard and Vanderbilt Lane, right next to the North Branch Library, and set a debut date of April 22, Earth Day.
Councilman Zein Obagi Jr., who represents the district, had told the group months earlier that the city would help however it could. When the market opened, South Bay Credit Union and the North Redondo Beach Business Association were the founding sponsors, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture had certified the produce vendors while L.A. County Public Health signed off on the prepared food stalls.
"We want to turn the corner into a main street," Mitchell told reporters after the debut, describing a corridor where a trip to the market turns into shopping next door and then dinner.
A formal ribbon cutting with council members followed on May 6, but the neighborhood had already made its verdict clear two weeks earlier. Organizers had said the market could eventually grow to 35 to 40 vendors at full capacity. Opening day alone drew more than 20, and several ran out of product before the 7 p.m. close.
Four months later, it's still running on the same closed block, 2 to 7 p.m., every week except holidays, as part of a run organizers originally described as lasting six months. Worth knowing if you've been meaning to check it out: this particular season isn't guaranteed to be a permanent fixture yet, which is one more reason to go while it's here rather than assume it'll wait for you.
What's Actually on the Folding Tables
The lineup on any given Wednesday leans toward small, single-operator businesses rather than the usual farmers market filler:
- Markowicz Farms for eggs, the vendor that sold out fastest on opening day
- Small Axe Bread for sourdough
- Del Cid Coffee for Guatemalan coffee
- Original Tamale Co. for, unsurprisingly, tamales
- Avila and Sons Farms for almond butter
- Brother's Products for hummus
- Cinnies for cinnamon rolls that reportedly disappear early
- Torres Garden, a Duarte-based nursery, for potted plants
Cerca Cultivation has also shown up with a running promotion: the first four people each hour who bring a market purchase back to the booth behind the library get a free potted bok choy sprout. It's a small detail, but it's the kind of thing that only makes sense once a market has enough regular foot traffic to sustain an hourly giveaway, which this one apparently does.
A Second Mickey's Beat the Mall to the Punch, Too
The farmers market wasn't the only proof this year that North Redondo's corridor could move faster than the Galleria's master plan. In February, Mickey's Deli, the Hermosa Beach sandwich shop that has been in business since 1953, opened its first-ever second location at Inglewood Avenue and Artesia Boulevard.
The new spot is small on purpose: 1,100 square feet, most of it kitchen, with a 250 square foot outdoor patio. It's run by Mickey Mance, grandson of founder Michael Angelo, alongside his father Paul Mance and partner Justin Essman. Construction started the previous October. Unlike the flagship in Hermosa, which also sells liquor and convenience items, the Redondo location is food only, open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. To mark the opening, the shop debuted a new item, the Redondo Chicken Cutlet, and gave the first 100 customers one free.
Three generations and 73 years of operating a single location, and the family chose this stretch of Artesia for its first expansion anywhere.
What's Still Coming
Not everything on the corridor has moved at farmers market speed. GrubHaus, a planned multi-kitchen food hall with a dozen independent food stalls, patio and rooftop seating, and underground parking, has been described as coming to Artesia since permits were first reported in 2022. By late 2024, local reporting noted progress there was "slower" than at other projects nearby. As of this month, the GrubHaus website itself still reads only "coming soon."
It's not a knock on the project so much as a useful contrast. The corridor's fastest wins so far, the market and Mickey's second location, both came from people who didn't need a master plan approved by a planning commission to open. GrubHaus, larger and more capital intensive, is playing a longer game.
What This Means for a Wednesday in North Redondo
None of this required the Galleria to finish anything. The corridor built its own gathering spot on one closed block, with a folding table budget and six months of lead time, while the mall's mixed-use redevelopment is still working through planning stages it started in 2019. If you already live in North Redondo, the practical version of this story is simple: Wednesday afternoons now have a reason to walk toward Green Lane instead of driving to Torrance or Riviera Village for the same errand, and there's a sandwich worth detouring for on the way.
Whether this particular six-month season becomes a permanent Wednesday habit is still an open question. But the appetite is not. Neighborhoods that outgrow their own expectations that fast tend to keep building on it, with or without the mall's help.
If you're curious how moments like this show up in what your North Redondo home is actually worth these days, the Jen Caskey Group tracks these shifts across the South Bay block by block. Reach out for a current home valuation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
