Cafe Laurent Is Opening a New Location on Centinela Near La Cienega

Cafe Laurent is expanding. The French California bistro announced on August 7 that it is opening a new location on Centinela Avenue near La Cienega Boulevard, in what the restaurant describes as the border of Inglewood and Culver City. The announcement went up on the restaurant's own Facebook page. No street address and no opening date have been released.

The restaurant framed the new space as a return to the format of its original Culver City address, naming a patio, a garden and easy access as the things it is bringing back from the Overland Avenue years. The opening is described only as coming soon.

From farmers markets to Overland to Mar Vista

Cafe Laurent traces back to around 2000, when its founders were selling croissants and organic quiches at local farmers markets using techniques learned in Normandy. Enough regulars asked for a permanent address that the family opened a restaurant, and for roughly two decades that address was 4243 Overland Avenue, a quiet corner of Culver City well off Culver Boulevard and Sepulveda. It was the kind of room people described as a hideaway.

That location has since closed. The restaurant now operates at 12034 Venice Boulevard in Mar Vista, open daily from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., serving the crepes, omelets, quiche and croissant sandwiches it built its name on. Wine and beer were added recently, and the restaurant's site lists dinner as coming soon.

What has not been announced

The Facebook post does not include a street address, a build-out timeline or an opening window beyond a promise of more updates. It also does not say whether Mar Vista stays open once the new location comes online. Centinela runs for miles across the Westside and into the South Bay, so the cross street at La Cienega is the only geographic detail currently on the record.

FJM will update this post when Cafe Laurent releases an address and an opening date.

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