Pick up a ticket for this year's Taste of RUNWAY and you'll get eight vouchers, one for each participating kitchen. Seven of those kitchens will hand you a plate. The eighth, Dizzy Bird, is still a construction timeline. It's listed as a participating restaurant for an event happening in five days, and it hasn't served a single customer yet.
That's not a typo in the marketing copy. It's the most honest data point on the whole flyer, and it tells you something about how fast Playa Vista's restaurant roster is turning over right now, faster than even an annual festival can keep up with.
What actually happens on August 27
RUNWAY's summer send-off runs Thursday, August 27, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on the plaza. One ticket buys eight vouchers, each redeemable for a sample at a participating restaurant, with beer, wine, and cocktails sold separately at the bar. Live music comes from the band Undecided Future, and an early-bird discount code knocks $10 off the ticket price while it lasts.
The confirmed lineup: Sol Cocina, LOQUI, Hopdoddy, P.V. House, Jeni's Ice Cream, Joliet, Urban Plates, and Dizzy Bird.
Here's the useful way to read that list before you plan your route around the plaza:
| Restaurant | Status as of the festival |
|---|---|
| Sol Cocina | Open, serving samples |
| LOQUI | Open, serving samples |
| Hopdoddy | Open, serving samples |
| P.V. House | Open, serving samples |
| Jeni's Ice Cream | Open, serving samples |
| Joliet | Open, serving samples |
| Urban Plates | Open, serving samples |
| Dizzy Bird | Not yet open, listed as a new venue planned to open later this year |
Seven working kitchens and one preview slot. If you show up expecting eight full menus, budget your vouchers around the seven that can actually cook for you, and treat Dizzy Bird's voucher as a save-the-date for whatever they roll out once the doors open.
The festival has been creeping earlier for years
If you've lived here long enough to remember when this event landed on the calendar in October, you're not misremembering. The first Taste of RUNWAY ran October 14, back when RUNWAY was still filling empty storefronts and billing it as the property's first food festival. By the time the event hit its third year after a pandemic-era relaunch, it had moved up to September 21. Now it's August 27.
Nobody at RUNWAY has explained the earlier date publicly, and I won't guess at a reason. But if you're the kind of resident who plans a September trip around the assumption that the food festival happens after Labor Day, that assumption is three years out of date.
The event's original purpose hasn't changed even as its calendar slot has. Back when the festival was still finding its footing, RUNWAY's marketing team described the goal in plain terms: to "throw an event that really supports our restaurants." That's still what it's doing. It's just doing it a month earlier than it used to, and this year it's doing it with one kitchen that isn't finished being built.
The other restaurant that isn't even on this year's list
Dizzy Bird isn't the only kitchen under construction at RUNWAY right now. Seabutter, a sushi group with locations in Beverly Hills, Glendale, Laguna Beach, and Westlake Village, has a signed lease for its fifth Southern California location inside the shopping center. As of the most recent public reporting this spring, "Seabutter Coming Soon" signage was already up in the directory, but neither the brand nor the property had put a firm date on the calendar.
Public planning filings tied to the buildout describe a specific footprint: roughly 47 indoor seats and 16 outdoor seats, with proposed hours running 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. That's a full-day operation, not a dinner-only add-on, which matters if you're the kind of resident who currently has to leave the neighborhood for a sushi lunch on a Tuesday.
Seabutter didn't make this list for Taste of RUNWAY. It isn't open enough to sample anything. But its lease is real, its seat count is filed with the city, and its arrival is a matter of when, not if.
Why a four-location sushi chain would pick this plaza fifth
Look at where Seabutter already operates: Beverly Hills, Glendale, Laguna Beach, Westlake Village. Those aren't neighborhoods a small chain lands in by accident, and none of them center on a single outdoor plaza the way RUNWAY does.
Playa Vista becoming the fifth pick says less about foot traffic and more about how dense RUNWAY's own restaurant directory has already gotten. The property's tenant list already runs to Dan Modern Chinese, Hopdoddy, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, Joliet, LOQUI, SOL Mexican Cocina, Urban Plates, and P.V. House, all open today, with Seabutter now added to that same directory as "coming soon." That's the kind of lineup a fifth-location sushi group studies before signing a lease, and it's likely why both Seabutter and Dizzy Bird are willing to wait for finished storefronts rather than rush an opening.
The rest of the week doesn't pause for the festival
If August 27 is the headline, it's worth remembering RUNWAY doesn't slow down the other six days of the week. Playa Vista Nights, the Wednesday open-air market, has run every week since March 11 this year, 4 to 8 p.m., with produce, artisanal vendors, and live music. By late August the vendors know the regulars by name and the produce is at its peak, which makes it the easiest weeknight dinner in the neighborhood if your plan is to grab something from a stall and eat it on the lawn.
Saturdays belong to the longer-running Playa Vista Farmers' Market, a fixture since 2009, with produce, flowers, baked goods, a KidZone for families, and a free compost hub run by LA Compost. CalFresh and EBT are accepted.
Weekend nights run on live music. The RUNWAY Summer Concert Series has been rotating through themed evenings on The Turf across July and August, opening with a Country Night in early July and rolling into jazz sets since. Sunday evenings add a second option a short walk east at the neighborhood's bandshell, where tribute-band lineups and food trucks fill the same 5 p.m. window.
None of that changes because of one Thursday festival. It just means the plaza that's about to serve you seven restaurants' worth of samples is the same plaza that's been running a produce market, a concert series, and a compost hub all summer without anyone needing to drive off the property.
Before you buy the ticket
Grab your tickets while the early-bird code still applies, plan your eight vouchers around the seven kitchens that can actually serve you, and treat the Dizzy Bird slot as a preview of what's coming rather than a full course. Between now and whenever Seabutter finally opens its doors, RUNWAY's restaurant count keeps climbing even on the weeks nothing is officially on the calendar.
If you're the kind of resident who tracks these openings because you're curious what your corner of Playa Vista is turning into, that curiosity is worth something beyond dinner plans. When you're ready to talk about what a neighborhood with this much dining density is actually doing to home values, Zacha Homes is a conversation away. Find out what your home is worth.
