LAGuide
Every Erewhon LA Location, Ranked
photo credit: Carlos R. Hernandez
Oh Erewhon, where do we even begin? Our love for you is as deep as our hostility toward you. You lure us in with luxurious hot plates and smoothies, and spit us out with demeaning credit card statements. You’re so beautiful and expensive, East Coasters have started to ask about you—even though you’ve technically been around since the 1960s.
From Calabasas to Silver Lake (with more stores on the way), the Erewhon conglomerate has never been stronger. But it’s no secret that some locations will spike your post-pilates endorphins more than others. Based on a scientific formula that takes into consideration parking, hot bar placement, aisle configurations, consistency, and the likelihood of customers unraveling while shopping, we have arrived at the irrefutable ranking, from best to worst, of every Erewhon store.
THE SPOTS
photo credit: Brant Cox
Rick Caruso gutted the Palisades of all charm, but one thing his latest mall development got right was Erewhon. It’s a palace with free underground parking. Marked signs point you to an elevator that drops you off right inside the store. Aisles are so wide, a Cessna could safely land in them. The smoothie bar has foliage just for funsies. Oh, and there’s a coconut soft-serve machine. Unlike the layout of some Erewhons, the produce section lives up front. This means regulars (i.e. people born into generational wealth) barely have to enter the store to do their daily shopping, keeping the hot bar traffic-free for everyone else. Afterward, take your bounty to the bucolic front patio for a meal that resembles lunch at Ina Garten’s house. Store-bought is fine.
photo credit: Carlos R. Hernandez
We can only assume the Erewhon executives consulted a feng shui expert when designing their Silver Lake location, which includes a separate wine shop next door and underground parking with free valet. For such a small store, this Erewhon stays miraculously devoid of bottlenecking—the hot bar, smoothie counter, and check-out lines are all sufficiently spaced apart. So there’s no need to squeeze past a pack of mullet-clad music producers to reach your collagen creamer. You can even (swoon) relax while you shop. Take a breath, even. The air inside the store is free...for now.
photo credit: Paul Turang
LA's newest Erewhon proves that the company's designers are at least learning from past mistakes. For starters, parking at the Culver City location is a dream. The Culver Steps underground garage is large, half-empty at all times, and free for the first hour. Inside the store, you’ll find a layout with zero vendettas towards its customers: spacious aisles, natural crowd flow, and a hot bar prep area that puts most Le Cordon Bleu test kitchens to shame. The best feature, however, is the store’s proximity to The Culver Steps, a tacky-cute pavilion with fountains and terrace seating. Consider this the ideal place to inhale buffalo cauliflower before returning to work.
photo credit: Carlos R. Hernandez
The first time we went to Erewhon in Studio City, we were convinced it was LA's premier location. The serene interior has no hot bar bottlenecks, and if you want some sunshine, you can eat your $21 sushi sandwich on one of the floating patio decks (yes) in the Sportsmen’s Lodge’s courtyard. The only reason it now lands at #4 is the current parking situation. As the Lodge’s redevelopment continues to bring in big-name brands, finding a parking spot now means battling it out with people who are determined to drop $700 on Parachute bath towels. Sorry, but we aren’t double parking our car and leaving keys with an overwhelmed attendant just to drink an almond-butter smoothie.
photo credit: Erewhon
In order to brainwash yourself into believing that $30 is a reasonable amount of money to spend on “oxygenated” water, the Erewhon shopping experience must be delightful. That’s not the case at the Calabasas location, which serves pure Kroger realness. Yes, this is one of the larger Erewhons in town, with a spacious hot bar and huge wine selection, but its newly developed strip mall location doesn't feel quite luxe enough for the brand. Valet attendants will not offer you complimentary beverages. You won't even find a ridiculous scene to make you chuckle—customer demographics range from teenage girls using mom's credit card to buy the Emma Chamberlain smoothie to families feeding their 4-year-olds gluten-free mac & cheese. At least there’s plenty of parking.
photo credit: Erewhon
The first thing to know about the Venice Erewhon is that parking sucks—the store's tiny lot sits right on the edge of Abbot Kinney Blvd. and most spots are reserved for valet. But the brick-walled shop makes up for its design flaw with a few nice touches. The hot bar lives right up front, the side patio has a vine-covered pergola, and, according to our calculations, this is the only location in town with a six-foot jerky wall next to the checkout line. Expect to see the usual packs of people in pilates gear slurping mushroom matcha, as well as shoppers who seem to be interested in seduction and salad in equal measure. Come by on a Sunday to witness what we've determined to be the horniest of Erewhons. That includes people making flirty eye contact with a kelp noodle daddy next to a bunch of Swedish tourists who just biked over from the boardwalk.
photo credit: Carlos R. Hernandez
The perks of the Santa Monica Erewhon are limited to comic relief and impressing your little cousin from Dallas who wants to be a content creator when they grow up. Bella Hadid once made her namesake smoothie here and signed a stack of cup sleeves for eager 19-year-olds. These days, influencers lurk in every corner, scouting the aisles for mutuals and forcing their yorkies to eat $20 tuna rolls. Don’t come here for groceries—the small parking lot stays chaotic and you’ll have to navigate a sea of blue checkmarks just to make it through the produce section. Unless you'd like to panic-buy a $40 jar of sea moss gel, you're better off skipping this one.
The Beverly Hills location should be rebranded as the Official Erewhon Gift Shop™ because it’s packed with tourists looking for LA keepsakes. You may hear ten different languages when you walk in, but everyone shares a common desire to spend money on random sh*t. Families of five swarm the drinks aisle to debate the difference between sparkling tonic and sparkling probiotic, crowds from the smoothie bar often almost spill out the front door, and it’s nearly impossible to get a seat on the busy patio. If you're easily claustrophobic, do not come here. After you park in the public structure next door (where the first two hours are free), the elevator spits you out directly into the community of impatient smoothie drinkers.
photo credit: Brant Cox
Traversing the nine circles of hell or shopping at the original Erewhon in Beverly Grove—is there a difference? We certainly can't find one. If this place got La Brea'd into a prehistoric sinkhole tomorrow, LA would be better for it. In need of a midweek emotional free fall? Try fighting 40 different Range Rovers for ten spots in a parking garage. Want to cry in public? Head to the unregulated hot bar line and watch yoga girl anarchy unfold every day at 6 pm. If you have any remaining hope for humanity, do yourself a favor and never come here.
