Anyone who tells you that malls are dead hasn’t been to the the Glendale Galleria. At 4 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon in early 2026, the scene looks as it might have at the same time of day some thirty years prior. Kids outnumber adults, with the high school crowd ambling past Journeys and Banana Republic in pairs and trios, while the few grown-ups alternate between sifting through sales racks at JC Penney and gossiping over Coffee Bean.
Glendale Galleria opened in 1976 and served as a beacon of LA mall culture through the earliest years of the new millennium. It’s where Panda Express became a fast food staple and where the first Disney Store appeared. For the past two decades, though, the Galleria’s reputation has been overshadowed by the neighboring Americana at Brand, Rick Caruso’s exercise in hyperrealism that looks like a cross between Disneyland’s Main Street and the Las Vegas Strip. The Americana has a trolley *and* a fountain show, plus a bunch of stores that only the Kardashian Klass can afford. It’s LA at its most aspirational. Glendale Galleria has Hot Dog on a Stick and Vans. This is LA at its most real.
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