If you've driven past The Lakes at Thousand Oaks in the last year, you've probably noticed the signage changing faster than usual. A vitamin shop closed. A grocery chain most people associate with Los Angeles moved in. A new Italian restaurant with a live band showed up a few blocks east. A chicken finger chain drew a line around the building on a Monday morning in August. If you clocked all of that as scattered, unrelated turnover, you're not alone.
The tenant mix at The Lakes is changing, and the theater next door has announced a new season.
What Actually Left, And What Replaced It
The clearest starting point is Lassens Natural Food & Vitamins, which had operated at The Lakes for seven years before closing on May 1, 2025. The closure wasn't quiet. A resident named Kamiel started a Facebook group called SaveLassensTO that grew past 100 members, and two residents spoke against the change at the Thousand Oaks City Council meeting on April 8 of that year. The property is owned by Caruso, the same company behind The Promenade at Westlake and The Village at Moorpark, and the plan from early on was to replace Lassens with an Erewhon market.
That plan became real on August 26, 2026, when Erewhon opened its doors at 2150 E. Thousand Oaks Boulevard. It's the chain's first location in Ventura County and its first store outside Los Angeles County entirely. The grand opening ran from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. with gift bags, fresh flowers from Flower Truck LA, and a Thousand Oaks exclusive called the Amidst the Oaks smoothie, a blend of pineapple, ginger, basil, spirulina, and mint, with part of the proceeds going to Manna Conejo Valley Food Bank. Regular hours are 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
That's one swap. It's not the whole story.
| Arrival | Location | Status as of late August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Erewhon | 2150 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd, The Lakes | Open, grand opening August 26 |
| Sette Sorelle | 495 N. Ventu Park Rd | Open since January 21, 2026 |
| Raising Cane's | 400 N. Moorpark Rd | Open since August 10, 2026 |
| Sora Temaki Bar | 2200 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd, The Lakes | Still listed as "coming soon" |
Sette Sorelle is the newest project from chef Jacopo Falleni, who also co-owns Nonna in Westlake Village. It opened to the public on January 21 after a deliberately quiet soft-launch period, and it has already built a reputation locally for live music, a full bar, and event space that runs past 14,000 square feet, big enough to handle a party of eight or a gathering of 250. Raising Cane's opened at 400 N. Moorpark Road on August 10, drawing a line early enough that the first 100 customers walked away with a combo card and a trucker hat.
Then there's the one that hasn't happened yet. Sora Temaki Bar, the hand-roll concept out of Savta Hospitality Group, announced a second location inside The Lakes back in September 2025, with an original target of spring 2026 and a later date of June 1 floated by the ownership. As of this writing, the brand's own website still lists the Thousand Oaks address as "Opening Spring 2026," and there's no storefront activity to suggest that's changed. Spring is long gone. If you've been watching that unit and wondering what happened to it, you're not missing something. The opening simply hasn't landed yet.
A New Season Next Door
These four changes in the area coincide with a new season at the Civic Arts Plaza next door.
The Civic Arts Plaza sits directly next to The Lakes and is home to the Bank of America Performing Arts Center and its two venues, the Fred Kavli Theatre and the Scherr Forum. In May, the American Theatre Guild announced its 2026-27 Broadway in Thousand Oaks season, and it's a bigger lineup than the venue has carried in recent memory:
- Hadestown
- The Bodyguard
- A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical
- The Carpenters Songbook: A Live Celebration, added as a special engagement
All four are Thousand Oaks premieres, meaning none of them have played this venue before. Layer on top of that the New West Symphony's 2026 Masterpiece Series, which runs through December 5 at the same performing arts center, and you get a fall and winter calendar that's pulling more cars off the 101 for a 7 or 7:30 curtain than this stretch of the Boulevard has seen in years.
A bigger season could mean more people looking for dinner within walking distance of the theater before the house lights go down. The Lakes is one nearby option, and its changing tenant mix adds variety. A wellness grocer with a tonic bar and a hand-roll counter built around quick, shareable bites both fit a pre-show crowd. Sette Sorelle, a few minutes away by car, fills the slower, sit-down-and-linger version of that same need with live music and private rooms for the group that wants to make a full night of it.
What This Actually Changes On A Wednesday
If you live within a short drive of Thousand Oaks Boulevard, the practical shift is small but real. A theater night that used to mean an early dinner in Sherman Oaks or a drive into the Valley now has a legitimate answer closer to home. You can walk from a parking spot at The Lakes past the koi pond, grab something quick or something that runs longer, and still make curtain at the Kavli without touching the freeway.
It's also worth being honest about what isn't finished yet. Sora's still-empty storefront is a reminder that "coming soon" signage at a shopping center is a plan, not a guarantee, and that the timeline between an announcement and an actual opening can stretch well past the date a company first floats. If you're planning an evening around a specific new restaurant, it's worth checking that it's actually open before you build a reservation around it, especially at The Lakes right now.
The changes in the tenant mix and the new theater season are part of the changing scene around The Lakes. A shopping center's tenant mix can offer one way to observe how a neighborhood is changing. The Lakes has a wellness grocer, and a chef-driven hand-roll concept is still listed as coming soon; the Broadway season includes four venue premieres. If you've lived here through the quieter years, this is the first meaningful shift in a long stretch, and it's happening in a very specific, walkable radius around Thousand Oaks Boulevard and the Civic Arts Plaza.
Keeping An Eye On What's Next
The Lakes and the block around it will likely keep shifting as the Broadway season gets underway this fall. Watch for whether Sora's storefront finally activates, and what other changes emerge alongside the season.
Renee Rosen keeps a close eye on these kinds of shifts across Thousand Oaks and the wider Conejo Valley, not because a shopping center's tenant list has anything to do with a listing, but because knowing a neighborhood well enough to notice what's changing before it's obvious is the same skill either way. If you want more of these local dispatches or you're weighing a move within the Conejo Valley and want a guide who actually pays attention to blocks like this one, reach out through Renee Rosen and start the conversation.
