Abbot Kinney Blvd. was all mom-and-pop type stores, art galleries, entrepreneurs trying out their best business ideas.

Tom's shoes was launched by Blake Mycoskie, who started the company in a Venice Beach apartment and set up a store on Abbot Kinney. His wife Paige started Aviator Nation, a clothing brand, on Abbot Kinney.

The restaurant Gjelina set up a kitchen on Abbot Kinney and became internationally famous, drawing in tons of foot traffic. Half the patrons at The Brig, a bar on Abbot Kinney a few doors down from Gjelina, were people having a drink before heading to their reservation at Gjelina.

The first Friday of every month became "First Fridays" where a convoy of food trucks would take over the block for a mob of people. During the very first first Fridays, a few stores had beer kegs in the back and you could get free beer.

Jon Favreau made a movie "Chef" about a guy that tries his hand at running a food truck. A lot of big timers in it.

Roy Choi had one of the biggest food trucks, KogiBBQ and trained Jon on real world food truck stuff. There's a few scenes that take place on Abbot Kinney.

Artists would make cool murals (and they still do). JR used a building on Abbot Kinney as a canvas for a piece from his The Wrinkles of the City.

Another artist Fin Dac created the "Hiko" mural as part of a showing of his art in a nearby gallery.

There was a kind of artistry with store window displays. Pamela Barish, who fashioned Ozzy Ozborne's wardrobe at one point, had a store. She had the coolest window display:

Another store, Principessa, had some kind of statement with their version of a Christmas tree. Not sure what it means, but it makes you go, "heh".

GQ magazine declared Abbot Kinney the "coolest block in America". And it was.

Then corporate America started to come in, paying huge rent just to be able to say they had an address on Abbot Kinney. Google had a major campus around the corner and brought in an army of techies with serious disposable income, and everything became way too expensive.

"Hipsters" became a new version of a "yuppie" and they seemed to be catered to on Abbot Kinney.

It made for quite a collision.

It's still a cool block, but it's something else now.

Tom's shoes closed it's store, the chef of Gjelina jumped ship and started a new restaurant on Abbot Kinney, RVR.

To his credit, RVR was named one of the best new restaurant by Esquire magazine in 2025. In any case, both Gjelina and RVR are out of my league, I was more of free beers from the First Fridays keg kind of guy.

Adam Sandler wore an Aviator Nation hoodie to the 2025 oscars...

...and Aviator Nation is still on Abbot Kinney.

The Brig still has a shot of whiskey and a beer for $11. But of course I don't drink anymore.

It's worth a visit. Check out the top tier restaurants in the world that are on Abbot Kinney.