Ananas Coffee has had the same neighbor problem for a while now. The storefront next door, the one that used to hold Paia Mercantile, sat empty long enough that regulars stopped checking the windows for a "coming soon" sign. Now there's one up, and it says VICI.
If that name means something to you, you already know why this is a bigger deal than a new storefront on North Main Street. If it doesn't, here's the short version. VICI is a women's fashion label that started right here in Walnut Creek in 2012, founded by Sandra Sayegh Dudum and Aimee Dudum Colorado. It grew from a local label into a company with stores in Nashville and Fairfield and a retail partnership with Dillard's. Then in the summer of 2020, it closed its original Walnut Creek location at The Mercer downtown and left the city that built it.
For five years, Walnut Creek didn't have a VICI store. Then last September, the brand tested the water with a pop-up at 1211 Broadway Plaza, across from Nordstrom. It was supposed to run about six weeks. It ran through the holidays instead.
That's the setup. Here's the part worth paying attention to: when VICI decided to make its return permanent, it didn't go back to Broadway Plaza, where the pop-up had already proven the demand. It went to North Main Street.
A Street, Not a Mall
The distinction matters more than it sounds like it should. Broadway Plaza is a managed retail center, the kind of place where foot traffic is engineered, anchor stores draw the crowd, and a new tenant inherits an audience that was already walking past. North Main Street works differently. It's a public street lined with independently leased storefronts, where a business has to earn its own foot traffic block by block rather than borrow it from a mall directory.
VICI had a full holiday season of proof that the Broadway Plaza spot worked. The company chose to walk away from that data point and build a new one, betting on a 2,200-square-foot space in the heart of downtown instead. The new store sits right next to Ananas Coffee, in the space Paia Mercantile left behind, and it's being described by the brand as a permanent location, not another test run.
A company doesn't leave a proven mall pop-up for a street storefront by accident. It's a statement about where the brand wants to be seen, and by whom.
What's Actually Going in the Window
The new location will carry VICI's full range when it opens this fall: dresses, denim, knitwear, athleisure, and outerwear alongside everyday staples. There's also a jewelry line that the company says will be exclusive to the Walnut Creek store, meaning it won't show up in the Nashville or Fairfield locations or through the Dillard's partnership. If you've been shopping VICI online or at one of its other locations, that's a specific reason to walk in rather than click through.
Store hours once it's open will run 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, putting it in step with the rest of the North Main Street retail rhythm rather than mall hours.
The Street Has Been Doing This All Year
VICI's move isn't happening in isolation. North Main Street has had more than one storefront change hands in 2026. Back in May, Raising Cane's announced it was taking over the former Wendy's site on North Main, another instance of a national name filling a spot that a longtime tenant had vacated. Two very different kinds of businesses, a chicken chain and a homegrown fashion label, both picked the same street this year over other options in downtown.
That's not proof of a trend by itself. But it does mean North Main specifically, not downtown Walnut Creek generally, has been where turnover is landing. If you've noticed more construction tape and window paper on that stretch than usual this year, this is why.
Why a Brand Comes Home at All
There's a version of this story where VICI just needed retail space and North Main had an opening. That's probably part of it. But the company's own framing leans harder into the idea of a homecoming. This is a brand that started in Walnut Creek, left in 2020, tested its return through a temporary pop-up in a mall, and then chose a permanent address on the street rather than staying inside the center that had already worked for a full season.
For a label that built its name locally before expanding to Nashville and Fairfield, betting on the harder version of a comeback, a street storefront that has to earn its own traffic rather than a leased spot with mall foot traffic built in, says something about how much the address itself is part of the pitch. A mall location tells customers a brand is available. A North Main Street storefront next to Ananas Coffee tells them a brand is back.
Watching the Rest of the Block
If you walk North Main Street this fall, VICI's build-out is one storefront to watch, but it's worth noticing what's happening around it too. A stretch that lost Paia Mercantile and is now filling that space with a returning local brand, combined with a national chain replacing a longtime fast food spot just up the street, is a corridor that's actively turning over rather than sitting static. Some of that turnover is chains moving in. Some of it, like VICI, is local names coming back. Both are happening on the same few blocks in the same year.
None of this requires a verdict on whether that's good or bad for the street. It's simply what's happening, storefront by storefront, and it's worth knowing if you're someone who walks North Main regularly and wants to understand why the windows keep changing.
The opening date for VICI hasn't been nailed down beyond "this fall," so the safest plan is to keep an eye on the space next to Ananas Coffee and watch for the doors to open.
If you're the kind of person who tracks which storefronts on North Main Street are turning over and why, that's the same habit of paying attention that goes into understanding a neighborhood well enough to make a good call about it. That's the work Lopez Listings does for clients across Walnut Creek every day, not just for the storefronts, but for the streets they sit on.
