From Dumplings to Handbags: How OC’s South Coast Plaza Pulls in $2 Billion a Year

Amar Santana always wanted a chef community in Orange County. The Queens, New York, native was used to late nights with fellow cooks, hanging out and drinking beers after long shifts on the line. So when he moved across the country in 2008 to open Charlie Palmer, a fine dining contemporary American restaurant that ultimately lasted seven years, he tried to bring the party with him. Landing at Orange County’s South Coast Plaza, one of America’s highest-grossing retail developments, made for an auspicious start.

“There wasn’t a place where all the chefs would go and hang out at night,” says Santana. “Back in New York, Anthony Bourdain would go to the same bar every night.” He tried to build something similar with his staff, frequenting a nearby dive bar, but it eventually fizzled out. In the years since, he’s seen countless restaurant brands come and go from South Coast Plaza. The high-end development can be unforgiving to underperforming brands and restaurants. When Charlie Palmer closed in May 2015, Santana quickly transitioned into a new South Coast Plaza space with Ahmed Labbate, another Charlie Palmer alum, and investor Pam Roy. Santana found sustained success with Vaca, the eight-year-old Spanish restaurant known for its aged steaks. Now, after 15 years in Orange County, Santana feels like he’s finding the community he’s been seeking in South Coast Plaza.

The privately owned development long held by the Segerstroms — one of Orange County’s most influential families — has become a beacon for kitchen talent and diners willing to spend big money. South Coast Plaza is home to Knife Pleat, one of Southern California’s highest-profile French fine dining restaurants; it’s got a Petrossian caviar cafe (housed inside of a Tiffany’s store, naturally), a Din Tai Fung for soup dumplings, and a Wahoo’s Fish Taco, among other offerings. In all, more than two dozen restaurants call South Coast Plaza home. Some have Michelin recognition, while others are run by Top Chef celebrities or Smithsonian-honored legends like Helene An, who operates AnQi Bistro on the second floor in what’s called the Bloomingdale’s Wing.

Santana says all that competition is healthy. “Now it’s a shopping resort, and you can get a Michelin-star meal,” he says. “It’s good for everyone.”

Even in coastal, casual Orange County, where many diners prefer flip-flops and taco trucks to white tablecloths, South Coast Plaza’s collection of restaurants dominates the landscape. There is no conversation about where to eat in Orange County that does not eventually touch on the retail behemoth.

South Coast Plaza’s story starts with lima beans.

The Segerstrom family behind the sprawling shopping center arrived in Orange County in 1898 from Sweden. They worked a dairy farm at first, before eventually transitioning into lima beans — a massive cash crop at the time for the area. The family became one of the country’s largest independent lima bean producers. By the 1950s the county began to undergo large-scale transformation and population growth, spurred on by new highways and coastal access, and in 1967 Henry Segerstrom and his relatives created the C.J. Segerstrom & Sons real estate partnership to further diversify their holdings.

That same year, they opened South Coast Plaza on an old plot of farmland close to the freeway. The first version of the property was much smaller (1 million square feet) and more traditional (as far as malls go), with a few dozen retail spaces and anchor tenants like Sears. Now, more than 55 years later, the total sum of South Coast Plaza’s growth has reached a staggering 2.8 million square feet, with some 250 boutique stores and 30 restaurants. More than 20 million customers visit each year from around the globe, and in 2021, South Coast Plaza’s annual sales exceeded $2 billion. (The number excludes certain tenants who prefer not to share their sales figures.)

South Coast Plaza’s success stems in part from the reputation it has cultivated as a destination, not a mall. (Never call it a mall.) Almost from the outset, the Segerstroms pursued relationships with high-end retailers, traveling abroad to meet with designers to coax them to Southern California. The family understood Orange County’s interest in aspirational brands, cultivating connections that led to exclusive regional retail openings with big-name brand value, starting with Nordstrom in the 1970s and Tiffany & Co. a decade later. In 1973 the restaurant Horikawa opened at South Coast Plaza, becoming Orange County’s first sushi bar.

“My father Henry Segerstrom set the tone and direction for South Coast Plaza,” says Anton Segerstrom. “He was a world traveler with a high taste level. His vision was evident early on with Riviera, a French fine dining restaurant that opened at South Coast Plaza in 1967. The family has continued to present a variety of unique dining experiences ever since.”

More recently, South Coast Plaza has begun to bring in even more food brands to help anchor its sprawling corridors, relying on a mix of known local restaurants, big-name culinary talent like Amar Santana, globally-recognized labels like Petrossian caviar, and giant international restaurant groups looking to make inroads into a new market — just like Nordstrom did nearly 50 years ago.

“We’re at South Coast Plaza. There’s built-in business,” says chef Nick Weber, who operates the colorful Populaire with friend and partner Ross Pangilinan (located on Level 2 in the Saks Fifth Avenue Wing, of course). “There are people who frequent the center four to five times per week, just to go shopping — which kind of blows me away. It’s a great clientele that likes to eat well, and they’re always walking by.”

Pangilinan knows that foot traffic well, having run the restaurant Terrace by Mix Mix elsewhere at the plaza. He also believes that having hands-on landlords has helped him secure long-term success for his projects. “I have what I think is a great relationship with [the Segerstrom family],” says Pangilinan. “They’ve been really great to work with.”

Pangilinan, Weber, Santana, and other chefs at South Coast Plaza regularly attend and cook at private events for the Segerstroms and many of the developments’ ultra-wealthy clientele, be it for birthday parties, blowout galas, or charity events. The close-knit relationships within South Coast Plaza also led directly to Verdant, a new restaurant at the predominantly Segerstrom-funded Orange County Museum of Art located next door. Pangilinan runs that restaurant with Weber, and many of South Coast Plaza’s higher-end chefs have already cooked at OCMA for various charity events and public functions.

“We all get along,” says Santana of his fellow chefs. “We’re under the same umbrella. We don’t get to [cook together] on a daily basis, but when we do get together for some events it’s a lot of fun. We get a lot out of it.” In recent years the group has grown to include Tony Esnault and his wife and partner Yassmin Sarmadi, who were coaxed to the penthouse floor of South Coast Plaza in 2019 to open the glittering French destination, Knife Pleat. Located next to the Louis Vuitton atelier, Knife Pleat is the center’s pinnacle fine dining restaurant. It has a Michelin star, and has received numerous critical accolades, and Esnault and Sarmadi are always game to throw around truffles and caviar for an upscale audience, or to pose for pictures with cast members from Netflix’s Bling Empire.

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