Last May, we learned that Patricia Tsai’s Chocovivo was planning to bail its current Abbot-Kinney space to move next door to The Otherroom on Abbot-Kinney. But as we all know now, AK is about to experience an exodus of its indie businesses due to sky-rocketing rents, all amid rumors of some serious scheming by venture capitalists to take over the street’s existing leases. Chocovivo tells a Grub Street operative that it will remain in its current address until the end of October before rooting itself in a new Mar Vista/Culver City location on the same block as Corner Door.
We forecasted the Abbot-Kinneyfication of this Culver corridor and eventually, nearby Mar Vista, with the opening of Waterloo & City in 2010, a vision that’s only been strengthened by the earlier introduction of Pitfire Pizza, and later, the coming of A-Frame and Corner Door to this corner. It won’t be long now before the quiet neighboring stretch of Venice Blvd. between Centinela and Inglewood starts seeing an uptick in its desirability.
