Chain Takes Over Topanga Social September 2 With Roy Choi, Mei Lin and More

Chain is opening a six-month residency at Topanga Social inside Westfield Topanga on September 2. It is the first long-term residency in the brand's history, which until now has run on pop-ups and festivals.

Four chefs are attached to the opening, each contributing a signature dish built around nostalgic chain restaurant food: Roy Choi of Kogi BBQ, Mason Hereford, Mei Lin of 88 Club and Daybird, and Calvin Eng. Additional menu details and collaborations are expected to be announced in the weeks ahead.

The idea

Chain was founded by B.J. Novak alongside Nicholas Kraft, Jack Davis, Byron Ashley, Abe Burns and chef Tim Hollingsworth, and started in 2021 as a West Hollywood parking lot pop-up. The premise was to run chain restaurant menus through a fine dining lens. It grew into ChainFest and a run of high-profile events, and the company is backed by Studio Ramsay Global.

The Topanga project extends that idea from the restaurants to the buildings that housed them. Novak has framed the residency as a tribute to the American mall food court, describing the same nostalgic pull people feel for the chains of childhood as applying to the malls those chains lived in.

Why Topanga Social

Topanga Social is Westfield Topanga's food hall in Canoga Park, which gives Chain something its pop-ups never had: a fixed address and a six-month runway. For the Valley, it means a roster of nationally recognized chefs cooking in a mall food hall for half a year, which is not a sentence that has been true before.

The residency opens September 2 and runs six months.

Follow along with more LA restaurant news, see what else has opened in our guide to new restaurants in Los Angeles, or browse our picks for the best food in Los Angeles.