Drive past 970 W. 190th Street on a Tuesday at 6:45 p.m. and something looks different from what a Torrance resident might remember. Between two nine-story office towers that used to hold nothing but parked cars after five, string lights are on. A folding glass door is open. Someone is carrying a beer across a lawn to a picnic table where two other people are eating rice balls out of specific opening-instruction wrappers.
If you have lived here a while, you already know what Torrance dining usually means. Del Amo food court on one end of the spectrum. Old Torrance diners and the sushi counters off Western on the other. The Enclave sits in a category the city has not really had, and over the last year it has quietly become the thing to text a friend about on a weeknight.
What The Enclave actually is
The complex sits on the technical border of Torrance and Los Angeles at the Harbor Gateway line. It was built as an activation project by The Ruth Group, which developed approximately 20,000 rentable square feet of high-end food and beverage retail spaces at The Enclave in Torrance. The bones matter for understanding the feel: it sits between two existing nine-story towers, mixes retail and food and beverage within a lounge-like atmosphere, and uses tree-lined walkways and open grass areas around light wooden structures on a human scale.
In practical terms, it is a collection of structures in a business park, similar in spirit to SteelCraft in Bixby Knolls, with four buildings between two larger office buildings — a food hall, two buildings of standalone restaurants, and a fourth space likely to be programmed with a fitness tenant. There is a large parking structure in the back, which is worth knowing if you have circled the front lot on a Friday.
Address: 970-990 W. 190th St. Hours run 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., seven days a week. It is dog friendly and semi-outdoor, which in the South Bay means comfortable for about ten months of the year.
Tenants worth knowing by name
The mix skews Asian, coastal, and independent, with a few nationally recognized brands scattered in. A short menu of who is here and what they are actually known for:
- Omusubi. A Japanese chain that chose The Enclave for its first US location, specializing in rice balls filled with things like salmon, crab, and beef sukiyaki with egg, each one wrapped with very specific opening instructions, with a menu that also includes rice flour-fried chicken, soft serve, and a deep selection of matcha drinks. This is not a case of a brand testing the waters in a bigger market; they picked Torrance on purpose.
- Trademark Brewing. The Long Beach brewery is opening its second location here. It is officially expanding into Torrance, joining a conglomerate of other food brands at the retail complex, with a taproom focused on the brewery's beers, though you should not expect the gleam of brewing tanks or the clank of brewers at this location. The beer is trucked in; the room is the point.
- HiroNori and 123 Pho. Both bring a tinge of Long Beach's food culture, with HiroNori also operating in Bixby Knolls and 123 Pho in Downtown Long Beach. HiroNori is ramen; 123 Pho is exactly what it sounds like.
- Chef Mike's Steak House. Located in Space 4 in Building B, approximately 1,200 square feet. Small footprint, sit-down format.
- Nook. The coffee anchor. Regulars mention it by name unprompted, which is usually the tell for a decent independent café.
The through-line is that these are not concepts invented for a food hall. They are working restaurants from elsewhere that picked this site.
Why this matters for how Torrance eats
Torrance is a city where dinner has historically meant a decision between a strip mall you already know and a drive to Manhattan Beach or Redondo. The Enclave changes the math because it is walkable-within-itself. You can start at Nook, wander to Omusubi, end at Trademark, and never move your car. That has not been an option in this part of town.
The other quiet change is who it serves. The complex was designed around office workers and local residents, with a diverse collection of restaurants, outdoor workspaces, and scheduled programming like yoga classes. Which means the crowd on a Wednesday at noon looks nothing like the crowd on a Saturday at 2 p.m., and both work.
Pairing it with a Torrance summer
The best move is not treating The Enclave as a destination on its own but as one leg of a night. The city is running Torrance Summer Nights, its free outdoor concert and entertainment series, from June 6 through September 12, 2026, and most of the venues sit within a short drive of 190th Street.
Three specific pairings worth putting on the calendar:
- Wilson Park concert night. Wilson Park Amphitheatre is at 2200 Crenshaw Blvd, Torrance, CA 90501. Dinner at The Enclave first, then a short drive over for a 5 p.m. show. The August 1 date brings ABBA LA, an ultimate disco party with the hits of ABBA, which is exactly the kind of show that works better with a beer already in your bloodstream.
- Torino Plaza in Old Torrance. On June 25, Kontrapunktus performs baroque music reimagined, moving downtown to Torino Plaza for a more intimate, atmospheric evening at 6 p.m. Pair with an early dinner at The Enclave, then head to Sartori Ave for the show and stay for a drink downtown after.
- Movie night with kids. August 15 brings The Super Mario Galaxy Movie to Wilson Park at 7:45 p.m. The Enclave's outdoor seating and rice-ball-sized portions handle a pre-movie kid dinner better than any sit-down restaurant in the area.
The full concert calendar and details are on the City of Torrance events page, and every event on the series is free and open to the public, with the exception of the two ticketed Armstrong Theatre performances of Disney's Frozen on August 8 and August 22.
One more date for the fall to keep on the radar: the Downtown Torrance Antique Street Faire returns to 1317 Sartori Ave from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., with more than 200 vendors featuring antiques, vintage goods, collectibles, and handmade items. It is one of the reliable set pieces of the Old Torrance calendar and pairs well with a coffee stop on the way in.
Beyond The Enclave
The Enclave is the biggest story, but the broader Torrance food scene has moved in 2026 in ways that reward paying attention.
Onki. In a Torrance strip mall, a celebrity chef from Korea has opened his first US restaurant, serving just four main dishes: pork neck soup that comes with tableside fried rice, galbi with mashed potatoes, pork jowl suyuk, and a platter of soy-marinated seafood, with add-ons of japchae, pancakes, corn cheese, beer and soju. Four-item menus tend to signal confidence, and reviewers have followed.
Daily Drops. A small Burmese kitchen with only two sidewalk tables, an extensive menu of Burmese dishes rarely seen in LA, pan-fried parathas stuffed with chicken keema, fragrant fish noodle soup, and an entire section dedicated to herb-heavy Burmese salads. Worth the tight seating if you have never had laphet thoke.
Habit Burger, third Torrance location. For the record, Habit opened its third Torrance restaurant at 1305 Sepulveda Ave., serving the public starting Monday, March 3, 2026. Not exciting on its own, but a data point: chains that open their third location in a single city do so because the first two are working.
The bigger point
None of this is a real estate argument. It is a livability one, and the two are closer than they look. When a Japanese chain picks Torrance for its US debut and a Long Beach brewery picks Torrance for expansion number two, the city's daytime and evening character is shifting in a direction that residents feel long before it shows up in a market report. That is the kind of change worth noticing early, because it changes what a Tuesday night looks like well before it changes anything else.
If you have not been to The Enclave yet, go on a Wednesday around 6:30. Park in the back structure. Start with Nook. See what you think.
When you are ready to talk about your street, your block, or your next move within the South Bay, Kawata Homes is here. Contact Cindy & Tiffany for a personalized market consultation.
