Ask anyone who has lived between Vermont and Hillhurst for more than a few years what changed in the last twelve months, and you will get a shrug and something about parking. The honest answer is more specific than that. Two quiet shifts have reorganized how residents actually spend a weekend here, and neither of them has been announced with any fanfare.
The Hillhurst Cocktail Question Finally Has an Answer
Nossa Caipirinha Bar closed at the end of 2024, and for most of last year the stretch of Hillhurst between Franklin and Los Feliz Boulevard felt short a proper cocktail room. That gap closed in early December, when Vandell opened in the former Nossa space.
The pedigree matters. Vandell is a project from Michael Francesconi and Matthew Glaser of Park Hospitality, the same team behind Donna's in Echo Park, the perpetually packed red-sauce Italian spot that pulls more overtly from East Coast nostalgia. They brought in Republique cocktail alums Vay Su and Shawn Lickliter to run the bar. The room reads Brooklyn more than Silver Lake, which is the point. Glaser told Resy that Los Feliz had been their top choice, and the offer to take over the space felt like kismet.
Two operational choices are worth knowing before you go. First, the food is deliberately narrow. Vandell isn't trying to be a restaurant in disguise. Instead, it offers a tightly edited menu of about 12 shareable dishes designed to support the drinking experience rather than compete with it. "We wanted food that makes you want another drink," Glaser says. Order the bar burger and stop worrying about it.
Second, and more useful for planning: Vandell is largely walk-in. While some Resys are available, walk-in guests join a waitlist if necessary and are encouraged to explore the neighborhood while they wait. Translation: put your name down, walk to Skylight Books, come back.
The Little Dom's Corner Is Doing Something New
The other Hillhurst development is not a new opening. It is the way Little Dom's at 2128 Hillhurst has started using the wine bar WONDERWERK next door as a collaborator rather than a neighbor. In July alone the pair ran a pair of nights that told you what the corner is becoming:
- Wednesday, July 22: Happy hour pours and fresh seafood specials. $10 glasses of select Big Juicy wines at WONDERWERK from 5 to 7, then a one-night-only seafood menu next door from sister restaurant Little Dom's Seafood featuring smoked fish rillettes, tuna carpaccio, albacore pastrami and wood oven-roasted fish.
- Friday, July 24: Disco Vino at Little Dom's, an unofficial after-party with California wine, vinyl, and DJ Chelsea Dean, aka minifunk, spinning an all-vinyl mix of house, funk, and disco inside the restaurant's deli, with light bites throughout the evening.
Neither event was a one-off marketing stunt. They read like a template. If you were writing a Los Feliz Friday off the top of your head six months ago, you probably would not have started at a delicatessen listening to a vinyl DJ. You might now.
Griffith Park Stopped Being a Guessing Game
The other change is quieter and touches more people. For decades, hiking Griffith Park meant knowing someone who knew a trail, or resigning yourself to the parking scrum at the Observatory. Hikers may use the entire 53-mile network of trails, fire roads, and bridle paths, but nothing about that number was helpful if you were standing at Fern Dell trying to decide which way to go.
That changed on Earth Day 2025, when Friends of Griffith Park launched a series of 15 trails under the umbrella of the Griffith Park Explorer (GP-eX). It was about an 18-month process. The website debuted for Earth Day, and GP-eX can also be accessed by the popular hiking app AllTrails. Twenty-four volunteer trail testers walked and re-walked segments to build it.
What the system actually does is match the park to the hiker. In addition to presenting the official trails in new configurations, GP-eX suggests segments for a variety of users. Want to see birds? Get a workout? Find a view of the Hollywood sign? The 15 hikes are also ranked by difficulty. A rough sense of which entry points serve which appetite:
| Entry point | Character | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Fern Dell, off Los Feliz Blvd. | Shaded creek, ferns, gradual climb to the Observatory ridge | First-timers, kids, anyone who wants shade before the exposed sections |
| North side, near Amir's Garden | Less-crowded park interior, cultivated garden, historic sites | Repeat hikers looking for the Toyon-Folk Garden Loop and the 1933 fire memorial |
| Vermont Canyon | Direct Observatory approach, Greek Theatre proximity | Sunset walkers and pre-show visits |
| Canyon Drive / Bronson | Film-location canyon, tunnel remnants of an old quarry | Weekend visitors who want a lower-effort payoff |
The Toyon-Folk Garden Loop winds through the park's less-crowded northern side and stops at Amir's Garden, Royce's Canyon, the site of the 1933 Griffith Park fire and the Griffith Park Composting Facility, which is the segment I would send a resident to if they thought they had already done Griffith Park.
Car access is not required. From the Metro B Line Hollywood/Western stop you can walk up Western to the Fern Dell entrance, and from the B Line Vermont/Sunset stop, you can hop on the DASH Observatory shuttle, which connects to several bus lines in the Los Feliz area. That matters more than it sounds, because the reason most residents stop using Griffith Park in July is the parking, not the heat.
A few practical notes from the park's own guidance before you go. Griffith Park is open daily from 5:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., but all trails in the park are closed at dusk. Bring water. Restrooms near each segment are noted by icons on the map, and water is usually available within the restrooms, but drinking fountains and bottle refill stations are not always in working condition, so bring your own.
A Friday-to-Sunday Shape Residents Are Actually Using
The through-line between these changes is that the neighborhood has more structure than it had a year ago. You do not have to invent a weekend anymore. A shape that has been working:
- Friday, 7 p.m. Put your name down at Vandell. Walk to Skylight Books or the Vista, which has been the Los Feliz single-screen anchor since 1923, and let the host text you.
- Saturday, 7 a.m. Fern Dell to the West Observatory ridge before the sun clears the ridge. Come down through the Berlin Forest and be back on Hillhurst by 10.
- Saturday, 8 p.m. WONDERWERK first for the wine, Little Dom's second for the pasta. If they are running a Disco Vino or seafood collaboration, that is the night.
- Sunday, 8 a.m. Toyon-Folk Garden Loop, north side. This is the segment for the resident who thinks they have exhausted the park. Amir's Garden alone justifies the drive.
- Sunday, 1 p.m. Barnsdall Art Park for Hollyhock House, then coffee at whichever Vermont Avenue spot has a table.
None of that is invented. All of it is available this weekend.
What This Actually Says About the Neighborhood
The pattern under these two changes is worth naming. Los Feliz has spent a long time being described as a lifestyle neighborhood: walkable, leafy, creative-adjacent. What has shifted in the last twelve months is that the walkability has an itinerary now. A cocktail bar with a maître d' and a walk-in policy is designed around the assumption that guests will wander. A trail system that maps 53 miles into 15 named segments is designed around the assumption that residents will use the park more than once.
For anyone who owns a home between Franklin and Los Feliz Boulevard, that is the quiet upgrade. The neighborhood is easier to use well than it was a year ago, and the residents who notice first are the ones who live here.
If you are thinking about the value of what you own in Los Feliz, or curious how a boutique, architecturally minded practice approaches a home in this pocket of the city, Michael Fenton is available for a confidential consultation. Book a conversation whenever the timing suits you.