Most of the year, Calabasas Lake sits behind a gate, reserved for the homeowners whose backyards touch the water. Four Sundays each summer, the city unlocks it. If you want to understand how this town actually spends its warm evenings, you have to know which four.
That inversion is the argument for this piece. The Commons at Calabasas is the postcard, but the real social calendar between June and August lives on a private lake greenbelt, at an Old Town parking lot on Saturday mornings, and inside two restaurants most residents have not yet tried.
The four Sundays the lake belongs to everyone
The Sun Sets Concert Series is the one summer tradition in Calabasas that residents guard from newcomers. It brings the community together for free, family-friendly live music on Sunday evenings during the summer months on the Calabasas Lake Greenbelt adjacent to the Calabasas Tennis & Swim Center, with concerts beginning at 6:00 PM and running approximately 90 minutes. The private Calabasas Lake is open to the public only during City-sponsored concerts.
That last sentence is the whole point. On any other Sunday, the greenbelt is closed to you. On these four, it is not.
Here is the 2026 schedule that matters:
| Date | Act | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| July 19 | Jumping Jack Flash | Rolling Stones tribute |
| August 2 | Gold Rush Country | Top 40 country |
| August 23 | Fantastic Diamond | Neil Diamond tribute |
The June 14 opener was Billy Nation, a Billy Joel tribute, so if you missed the season kickoff, three Sundays remain.
Logistics are worth planning for. Entrance is at the Calabasas Tennis & Swim Center located at 23400 Park Sorrento. Regulars know two rules by experience. First, arrive with a blanket, a low chair, and a picnic before 5:30 if you want a spot within earshot of the stage. Second, dogs are welcome on the grass but pets are not allowed on the shuttles with the exception of service animals, so if you plan to use the park-and-ride from the Civic Center, leave the dog at home.
Saturday mornings have a fixed address
For a town of gated drives and long private lots, Calabasas has a surprisingly walkable weekly ritual. The Old Town Calabasas Farmers Market runs Saturday 8:00am to 1:00pm at 23504 Calabasas Rd. It runs year-round, not just in summer, which means the rhythm predates any given resident's arrival.
The market is not a food court. It is a working produce market that happens to have prepared food along the perimeter, which is why the serious shoppers show up in the first hour. Get there by 8:30 for stone fruit in July, tomatoes in August, and the flower vendors before the good dahlias are gone. Free parking is in the dirt lot behind the market; the paid lots along Calabasas Road fill by mid-morning.
If you are new to Calabasas and only do one thing on this list, do this. It is where you will run into your neighbors without an appointment.
What is actually new to eat
The Commons gets the marketing budget, but the two restaurants worth talking about this summer are one that opened quietly last spring and one that finally, after five years of false starts, appears to be arriving.
Superba Food + Bread. Superba Food + Bread opened at The Commons at Calabasas on March 28th, a California brasserie from founder Paul Hibler and CEO Jeff Goodman of American Gonzo, building on the hospitality established since the restaurant's introduction to Venice Beach in 2014. It serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week, and the Calabasas location has dishes exclusive to it, including an Egg White Frittata, Superba Hash Browns and Osetra Caviar, Bluefin Tuna Carpaccio, and a Market Vegetable Fritto Misto. The address is 4799 Commons Way, hours Sunday through Thursday 8am to 9pm, Friday and Saturday until 10pm. If you have been rotating between Toscanova, Marmalade Café, and Porta Via Calabasas for the last decade, this is the first real addition to that shortlist in years.
Salsa & Beer Mexican Grill. This one is more interesting as a story than as a restaurant, because the restaurant is not open yet. Signs went up in June 2026 at 4895 Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas, at the former Coco's location visible from the 101 south, after the original "coming soon" signs from December 2020 were taken down and the project stalled for five and a half years. Owner Gabriel Huerta told What Now Los Angeles they are finishing construction and planning to open soon. The chain has four existing locations, one in Lake Balboa and three in North Hollywood, and focuses on the flavors of Jerez Zacatecas, Mexico. Drive past the site on your way home this week. If the paper is off the windows, the wait is over.
The pattern here is worth naming. The Commons is the retail engine of Calabasas, but the meaningful additions to daily life are happening off the main plaza — at a lake most people cannot enter, on a stretch of Calabasas Road that closes to cars every Saturday, at a corner off the 101 that has been dark since Coco's left.
The Commons plays a supporting role
None of that is to say the plaza is irrelevant in July and August. It is where you take out-of-town guests and where the kids go when the temperature is over 95.
Two things are worth putting on the calendar. Kids Club runs every Tuesday in June from 5pm to 6pm in The Courtyard, which sits between Marmalade Café and Toscanova, with live music, storytelling, and puppet shows. Barnes & Noble is running a Summer Reading Celebration story time with games, sweet treats, and activities for ages 6 to 12. For adults, the small pleasure of the season is Summer Berries at See's Candies, running through August 3, with blueberry, strawberry, and raspberry centers in milk and dark chocolate.
One planning note. Porta Via Palisades is re-opening in August 2026, which will pull some of the Palisades-displaced clientele back east and out of the Calabasas dining room. If you have been waiting for a Saturday reservation there, late August will be easier than July.
The one civic event no one skips
The 4th of July Spectacular, with the Fun Run, Pet Show, and Splash Party, remains the day the largest cross-section of Calabasas actually shows up in the same place. If you are new here and trying to meet people who live within a mile of you rather than three canyons over, this is the day.
A weekend you can copy
Here is what a full Calabasas summer weekend looks like when you use the calendar the locals use:
- Saturday, 8:15 AM. Farmers market on Calabasas Road. Coffee, peaches, flowers, out by 10.
- Saturday, midday. Errands at The Commons if you have them; Kids Club is on Tuesdays, not Saturdays, so the plaza is calmer.
- Saturday night. Superba for dinner. Reservations at 7 hold better than 8.
- Sunday, 5:15 PM. Blanket and cooler in the car. Head to 23400 Park Sorrento. Sun Sets kicks off at 6.
That is a two-day itinerary you cannot assemble from a Google search for "things to do in Calabasas." Half of it happens on private property that is not private four nights a year. The other half happens in a parking lot that most drivers pass without stopping. The people who know both are the ones who have lived here long enough to have learned them from a neighbor.
If you have been in Calabasas long enough to have your own version of this weekend, and you are starting to think about what your next home in the area looks like, the team at Rodney Johnson Estates has spent decades watching this market from inside the gated neighborhoods that surround the lake. Schedule a confidential market consultation when you are ready to talk. We will bring the local knowledge; you bring the questions.
