SanDiegoVille reported that a regular walked up to the Sweetfin counter at One Paseo and found the wallpaper stripped, the counter gone, and nothing but the exterior sign still hanging where a poke bowl used to get made to order. There was no notice on the door, and Sweetfin's own website still listed the location as open as of that Tuesday. A customer's post online was the first public indication that Carmel Valley's original Sweetfin, the tenth location the Los Angeles chain ever opened and one of the restaurants One Paseo built its identity around back in 2019, had closed.
Three storefronts away, a different change has taken place. On Monday, August 31, Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop Kitchen opened its doors in the space that used to be Tender Greens, another original-era tenant from One Paseo's 2019 debut. It's not just Goop's first San Diego location. It's the brand's first full-service, dine-in restaurant anywhere, after five years of operating as a delivery-and-takeout concept in Los Angeles and Orange County. Carmel Valley was the first place to see the brand test its first sit-down format.
Read those two facts side by side and the story is one of change at One Paseo: Sweetfin has closed, while Goop Kitchen opened in the former Tender Greens space.
Two notable tenant changes at One Paseo
Sweetfin and Tender Greens weren't random tenants. They were the concepts One Paseo's developer, Kilroy Realty, used to define the project when it opened: California-casual, health-forward, built around the idea that a shopping center could feel like a neighborhood rather than a mall. Sweetfin ran for more than seven years. Tender Greens was named among the original roster of tenants when the center opened in 2019.
Sweetfin has closed, while Goop Kitchen opened in the former Tender Greens space. Goop Kitchen isn't a scrappy local concept finding its footing. It's a Paltrow-founded brand with a built-in social media following, which opened its most ambitious format yet in a suburban San Diego shopping center before Los Angeles or Orange County. That's not the profile of a plaza in decline. It's the profile of a plaza being used as a proving ground.
| Sweetfin (closed) | Goop Kitchen (opened) | |
|---|---|---|
| Status at One Paseo | Closed abruptly, late August 2026 | Opened Monday, August 31, 2026 |
| Years at this location | Over 7 years (opened July 2019) | New to San Diego |
| Format | Fast-casual poke, gluten-free menu | First full-service, dine-in Goop Kitchen anywhere |
| What it replaced or replaces | Was part of original 2019 tenant roster | Takes over the former Tender Greens space |
These changes provide context for considering what a tenant departure at One Paseo does—and does not—show.
Why this isn't the same as a restaurant closing somewhere else
A closure at One Paseo is part of the center's tenant mix. The center was built as a curated, single-landlord environment where Kilroy controls which brands get a lease and which don't. A tenant's departure alone does not explain why it left or what will follow.
That's worth knowing if you eat at One Paseo regularly: a familiar restaurant may not remain part of the center's tenant mix.
What isn't rotating
The restaurants churn. The rest of the week doesn't. If you strip out the storefronts and look at what actually repeats every week at One Paseo and around it, the pattern is closer to a routine than a retail cycle:
- Sunday mornings, the farmers market sets up in the Torrey Pines High School parking lot, the same lot that's been hosting it for years.
- Sunday afternoons, that crowd tends to drift east toward One Paseo's lawn, where live acoustic music runs through the summer.
- Wednesdays, the Del Mar Run Club meets at One Paseo, a standing weekly event rather than a seasonal one.
- Ongoing, One Paseo's public art walk rotates installations from artists including Andy Davis and London Kaye, billed as the largest outdoor public art display in North County.
None of that depends on which restaurant occupies which suite. It's civic rhythm layered on top of commercial rotation, and it's the part of Carmel Valley's week that a directory of open and closed restaurants will never capture.
Dining updates at other Carmel Valley destinations
Del Mar Highlands Town Center, a short drive west on Del Mar Heights Road, recently added Ambrogio15, a modern Italian restaurant housed inside the Skydeck food hall and built around a culinary collaboration with Michelin-starred chef Silvio Salmoiraghi of Ristorante Acquerello in Italy.
Addison, San Diego County's only three-Michelin-star restaurant, sits inside Carmel Valley's borders and reopened after a major facelift that added a new Champagne lounge.
Together, these updates offer a snapshot of Carmel Valley dining alongside the restaurant changes at One Paseo.
The one amenity that isn't leased
Not everything that anchors a Carmel Valley week is commercial. The Pacific Highlands Ranch Library, an 18,000-square-foot branch that opened in November 2024 as the newest addition to the San Diego Public Library system, runs an IDEA Lab open to any cardholder, stocked with 3D printers, a Glowforge laser cutter, a Silhouette Cameo cutting machine, and Mac stations loaded with Adobe Creative Cloud. It's the kind of resource that doesn't show up on a restaurant map and doesn't depend on a landlord's leasing strategy. No suite to renew, no brand to replace it with something trendier next quarter.
That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should. A shopping center's tenant mix can change in a single week, as the closure and opening at One Paseo show. A public library branch, once it's built and funded, tends to still be doing the same thing five years later.
Restaurant changes and neighborhood routines
One Paseo's tenant directory is one part of Carmel Valley's commercial picture. Sweetfin has closed, and Goop Kitchen has opened in the former Tender Greens space. Meanwhile, the Sunday market, the Wednesday run, the rotating art, and the nearby library are part of the area's broader weekly routine.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this is actually worth to live in, day to day, that distinction between what turns over and what doesn't is the kind of detail that only shows up after watching it happen more than once. WM Luxury Real Estate covers Carmel Valley and the surrounding coastal communities closely enough to know which parts of a neighborhood's character are load-bearing and which are just this year's tenant. If you'd like a candid, no-pressure read on what's happening in this market or any of San Diego's coastal neighborhoods, request a private consultation.
