Plan

Where to go before and after.

Browse stops

12 stops
Before
Cafe Mimosa
French cafe and gift shop

French-owned by Claire Denis, formerly of Paris, with pastries and croissants, quiche and soups, and a strong vegan and gluten-free list. Half of it is a gift shop and the front is a planted patio.

Monday to Friday 7am to 2pm. Saturday and Sunday 7am to 4pm.

Cafe on 27
Hillside outdoor cafe

Built into a hillside on State Route 27, which is what the name is about, with a multi-level patio looking down the canyon. Almost all the seating is outdoors. They roast their own organic coffee, and the menu runs from avocado toast and grain bowls to lobster benedict and a Moroccan kofta tagine. There is a small shop.

Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm. Saturday and Sunday 8am to 4pm.

Hidden Treasures
Vintage clothing shop

A vintage and costume shop on the Topanga Canyon roadside, painted up like a stage set, with racks running from Victorian to the 1980s. Darrell Hazen started selling clothes in the canyon in the 1970s and opened this building in the late 1980s. Browsing costs nothing and the staff leave you alone.

Monday 11am to 6pm. Tuesday to Thursday 11:30am to 5:30pm. Friday 11am to 6pm. Saturday and Sunday 10:30am to 6:30pm

Inn of the Seventh Ray
Creekside garden restaurant

Open in Topanga since 1975, under old sycamores beside the creek. Tables are set on stone terraces with lights strung through the branches, and there is covered seating plus an indoor space for cold nights. The cooking is Californian and seasonal, off local farms and the restaurant's own organic garden.

Lunch Monday to Friday 10am to 2:30pm, dinner from 5:30pm. Weekend brunch 9am to 3pm, dinner from 5:15pm

Malibu Bluffs Park
City park on the bluff

A city park on the seaward side of PCH across from the Pepperdine entrance, sitting on the bluff with ball fields, a jogging loop and trails that drop toward the water. There is a whale watching station on the edge, and from December through April gray whales pass below it. Parking and entry are both free.

Daily, 8am to sunset

Neptune's Net
Roadside seafood counter

A shack at the county line where PCH runs out of Los Angeles, opened in 1956 as Panorama Pacific and renamed after a contest in 1971 when the Young family took the lease. You line up at one of two counters, fried on one side and steamed shellfish on the other, and eat at picnic tables with motorcycles parked across the lot. It has been in more films than anyone has counted.

March to October: Monday to Thursday 10:30am to 8pm, Friday 10:30am to 9pm, weekends 10am to 8:30pm. October to March it closes an hour earlier each day

Paradise Cove Beach Cafe
Beach cafe with tables on the sand

The only restaurant in Malibu with its own private cove, with tables set directly on the sand. Bob Morris opened it in 1998 on land his father assembled acre by acre in the fifties. The parking lot is where Jim Rockford kept his trailer in The Rockford Files, and the cove turns up in Gidget and Beach Blanket Bingo.

Daily 8am to 9pm, with some listings running Friday and Saturday to 10pm. Breakfast 8am to 11am. The operator publishes no hours of its own.

Rock Store
Roadside burger counter

A stone building on Mulholland that the Savko family turned into a store and grill in 1961, and which has been the gathering point for motorcyclists on this road ever since. You order a burger at the counter and eat it at a long table outside while two hundred bikes come and go. It shuts at five and closes Monday through Thursday, so the window is narrow and real.

Friday 9am to 5pm. Saturday and Sunday 7am to 5pm. Closed Monday to Thursday

Topanga Living Cafe
Counter cafe and market

Family owned in upper Topanga village, counter service for organic breakfast and lunch with a market attached selling food and homewares. Juices, smoothies, lattes and wraps. The owners have said they want to add evening service, which they have not done yet.

Daily 8am to 3pm, though one listing says 4:30pm. Call (310) 455-9888 if the last hour matters.

Waterlily Cafe
Canyon breakfast and lunch cafe

Family-owned in Topanga village since 2000, small and hung with art. Sandwiches made to order, soups and quiche made in the building, bread delivered daily, meat without antibiotics and organic produce where they can get it. There are gluten-free options and a free lot.

Monday to Friday 7am to 3pm. Saturday and Sunday 8am to 3pm.

After
Endless Color
Open-air pizza counter

An indoor-outdoor pizza place in the Topanga Center, behind the post office, with a wood oven, a short wine list and a crate of second-hand records by the counter. It is newer than anything else in the canyon and it is still a walk-in with picnic tables. The 9pm close is the latest anything in Topanga keeps.

Daily, 10am to 9pm

The Old Place
Canyon bar and grill

The old Cornell general store and post office on Mulholland, now a restaurant the Runyon family has run for three generations. The bar inside was salvaged out of a Virginia City saloon. Outside there is a take-out window and a scatter of tables under the oaks, which is the part you can walk up to without booking anything.

Thursday 4pm to 9pm. Friday noon to 9pm. Saturday 9:30am to 9pm. Sunday 9:30am to 7pm. Closed Monday to Wednesday