When it comes to Los Angeles grocery stores, a certain health food spot to the stars gets a lot of buzz anytime it, say, releases a toothpaste-flavored smoothie or promotes a single $18 honey-butter pancake. It’s easy to understand why; Erewhon’s tightly curated branding, celebrity collaborations and sky-high prices are perfect fodder for a world eager to roll its eyes on the internet. But here in LA, real grocery store fanatics know that a less flashy gourmet chain has quietly been the everyman’s Erewhon for years.
From Newport Beach to West Hollywood to Santa Barbara, Bristol Farms is the real bougie grocery store that Southern California can’t get enough of — including its own incredible prepared foods section and a newly revamped juice and smoothie operation.
The first Bristol Farms was opened in 1982 by founders Irv Gronsky and Mike Burbank in the Palos Verdes Peninsula town of Rolling Hills Estates, widely considered to be among the wealthiest areas in all of America. A second location opened in South Pasadena in 1985 (median home sale price: $1.8 million), and the company has since grown to 13 locations throughout Southern California. But while other chains like Trader Joe’s may opt for market saturation (even putting two stores directly across the street from one another), Bristol Farms has taken a pinpoint approach, dropping into almost exclusively high-end areas often hundreds of miles apart. That includes locations everywhere from Santa Barbara out to Palm Desert and even down to Newport Beach. (A sole Northern California location, in the beleaguered Westfield San Francisco Centre, shuttered in 2017.)
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A customer orders baked goods at Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on March 27, 2026.
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House-made soups in Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on March 27, 2026.
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The Bristol Farms Seafood Roadshow in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
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Both Gronsky and Burbank had backgrounds in the meat business, so high-quality meat and seafood were an early focus. In the past 44 years, though, not only has the company gone through ownership changes — it’s now owned by Good Food Holdings, Inc., which also owns upscale grocery chain Lazy Acres — it’s stayed true to its commitment of offering a wide assortment of thoughtful prepared foods and bakery items.
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“I’ve heard many a time over the years that we’re the Disneyland of food,” says Steve Howard, senior vice president of retail, who’s been with Bristol Farms for more than 30 years. “People come here to explore and discover something great.”
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“We make restaurant-quality food. We get to experiment under every profile, and we can do it under one roof,” adds Dan Evon, an alum of restaurant behemoth Lettuce Entertain You and vegan restaurant chain Cafe Gratitude who now serves as the company’s vice president of culinary. “Our kitchens are scratch kitchens.”
A stroll through any Bristol Farms does, in fact, reveal all manner of prepared foods: soups that range from chicken madeira to Russian cabbage; a fresh salad bar stocked with all the fixin’s and composed salads like curried chicken; a hot bar with carnitas and chile relleno; a vegan section with falafel and a harvest orzo salad as well as marinated tofu. Staying true to the company’s meat-heavy roots, there’s a section offering smokehouse sandwiches like a tri-tip cheesesteak and hickory-smoked pastrami on rye; the meat is smoked in-house.
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Prepared sandwiches in Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on March 27, 2026.
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The produce area of Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on March 27, 2026.
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“The Cookie” at Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on March 27, 2026.
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An extensive bakery section offers everything from whole and half pies to salted caramel vanilla bundt cake and treats like coconut cream doughnuts and slices of caramel iced banana cake.
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There is, of course, also The Cookie, which has its own devoted local following. The gargantuan 6-ounce cookie, served warm, is Levain-esque in proportion but softer and gooier — and at $4, also more affordable. “We fly in Callebaut chocolate from France for the cookie, and we still hand-cut a lot of our cheeses,” Howard says of the focus on care and quality ingredients.
Bristol Farms also holds the distinction of being one of the first, if not the first, grocery stores to serve restaurant-quality sushi, which can still be seen in the wide selection of rolls, sashimi and bowls prepared in-store, as well as custom platters that can be ordered for parties.
“The foresight that the Gronskys had in 1982 to bring sushi into the storefront and see what it’s exploded into today is really incredible,” says Howard of the availability of sushi in grocery stores today. “A lot of our competitors third-party it, but it’s in our DNA to make it. We were one of the first to have self-serve poke bars.”
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The fresh poke section of Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on March 27, 2026.
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An aisle in Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
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The BFF smoothie at Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
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In more recent years, Bristol Farms has put more focus into its juice, smoothie and coffee offerings and has also gone through remodels of its stores to bring them up to date. With smoothies that start at $9 and juices like Immunity+ (lemon, ginger, orange, pineapple, cucumber, echinacea and cayenne) in branded glass bottles also hovering around the $9 mark, the options are less arm-and-a-leg pricing than Erewhon. There are even chagaccino and collagen drinks available.
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“The coffee and juice bar area is really special, from bringing in La Colombe to the seasonal juices we’re going to do in the summer,” says Joyce de Brevannes, an Erewhon and Whole Foods vet who is now Bristol Farms’ vice president of marketing. “The smoothies are beautiful and functional, not punishing in any way.”
Bristol Farms is scheduled to open its 14th location in the heart of Hollywood in mid-April. The juice and coffee bar will have a big presence at the entrance, as will Bristol Farms’s signature floral selection. Evon has developed a new smash burger and a Korean-style fried chicken sandwich that will be specific to that location.
“We’ve kept the signature warm, farmhouse vibe but we tried to speak to the neighborhood that we’re serving, so there’s a lot of concrete to make it feel more urban,” de Brevannes says of the new store’s design.
The exterior of Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on March 27, 2026.
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“We’re adjacent to the Hollywood Palladium, so hopefully we’ll get people on their way to or from a concert,” Howard says. “There will also be families visiting from the Midwest who are walking around Hollywood Boulevard and the stars and we can be that stop for a bite or to load up a hotel room.”
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De Brevannes adds: “The welcome that we’ve received from the community has been extraordinary.”
As Erewhon also continues to open new locations, including one inside a members-only club in New York City, the winner of the smoothie wars remains to be seen — but 44 years in, Bristol Farms stays in the mix.