Ask anyone who lives between Ventura Boulevard and Mulholland Drive where they get their Sunday produce and you'll hear the same answer: the Encino Farmers Market. They mean the sprawling Sunday morning fixture at 17400 Victory Boulevard, the one with the fish stall, the two bakeries, and the crepe vendor who's been setting up in the same spot for years. That lot sits in Van Nuys, zip code 91406, run by the nonprofit ONEgeneration out of its campus between White Oak and Balboa.
The market is real, it's good, and it's been feeding this stretch of the Valley for decades. It's one of the places residents gather, alongside Encino's parks, historic sites, community events and restaurants.
What the market is, and who it serves
The Encino Farmers Market runs every Sunday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., rain or shine, year-round. More than 30 farms rotate through depending on season, alongside a food court of tamales, coffee, smoothies, and a fishmonger, plus a rotating cast of crafters selling soap, cut flowers, and jewelry. It's a genuinely good market.
Every dollar spent there supports ONEgeneration's senior services, which include homebound meals and transportation for older adults across the San Fernando Valley.
Encino Park and its community festival
Start with Encino Park itself, at 16953 Ventura Boulevard. This past May 31, the Encino Neighborhood Council held its second annual EncinoFest there, a free community gathering organized entirely by the volunteers on the council's Community Events Committee. It's a small event by LA standards, run by the neighborhood council and funded through the council's own outreach budget.
The council didn't stop there this year. At its April board meeting, the ENC put forward a new initiative called Encino Walks, a standing program encouraging residents to get outside and walk together at a set time each week. It's a modest idea, the kind of thing that won't show up on a "best of the Valley" list anytime soon, but it's a genuine, homegrown answer to the question of what people in this neighborhood do together.
The oldest thing in Encino is five minutes from the boulevard
For a neighborhood name with real roots, walk into Los Encinos State Historic Park at 16756 Moorpark Street, just north of Ventura Boulevard near Balboa. This is where the name Encino actually comes from. The site was the village of Siutcanga, home to Tongva and other Indigenous communities drawn by a natural spring that produced water year-round. Spanish explorers passed through in 1769 and eventually named the valley for the oak trees they found here. Vicente de la Ossa built an adobe on the property in 1849, and the two-story limestone Garnier house that still stands today went up in 1872, two years before the spring-fed pond was constructed in 1874. The park itself, all 4.7 acres of it, has been a state historic site since 1949.
It's open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., admission is free, and dogs are welcome on leash outside the buildings. It's not a hiking destination and it won't fill a whole afternoon, but it's a genuinely quiet, shaded loop around a duck pond that predates every strip mall on Ventura Boulevard by more than a century.
What's new on the boulevard this year
Ventura Boulevard itself hasn't been standing still. Encino's restaurant scene has had real turnover in 2026.
Popular opened in March at 18047 Ventura Boulevard, the seventh concept from the Tel Aviv Restaurant Group, led by executive chef Dor Priezler. The 4,000-square-foot space runs Mediterranean fusion with a seafood-forward menu and a dedicated cocktail bar.
A few blocks over, Pialon has become one of the boulevard's more talked-about additions, a Mediterranean tapas spot built around shareable small plates, most under $18, with a courtyard that draws a steady happy hour crowd. Davenport's, just off the 405 on Ventura, has settled into the kind of dependable, family-run spot people default to without overthinking it. On the quieter, steadier end of the strip, Beck's Café and Bakery at 16101 Ventura keeps a straightforward, kosher-certified breakfast and lunch menu, and Claudine Kitchen & Bakeshop has built a loyal following around scratch-made, all-day brunch.
Not everything survived. Corner Bakery, which had operated for years at 15626 Ventura Boulevard, shows as closed on its most recent listing update this June. A single closure doesn't prove a trend, and the boulevard has also seen new restaurant openings this year.
What this says about the neighborhood
The neighborhood's character comes through in its places and activities: the farmers market on Victory Boulevard, a 177-year-old adobe by a spring-fed pond, a park hosting its second annual community festival, and a boulevard welcoming new restaurants.
If you've lived here long enough to have opinions about which of these places matters to you, you already know how much there is to explore. And if you're the kind of person who notices details like where the Sunday market is located, you're exactly the kind of resident NewMarket Homes LA likes talking to when questions about the neighborhood eventually turn into questions about your house. When that day comes, request a free home valuation and let's talk about what your corner of Encino is actually worth.
