As Hoodline reported, Irvine's second In-N-Out opened on a Friday in early September at 7900 Great Park Blvd, the chain's first location inside Great Park Neighborhoods. The lane was built to hold 33 vehicles. For years, the only In-N-Out serving this part of Irvine sat on Campus Drive near UC Irvine, a location known for backups that spilled into the surrounding streets. That capacity is a notable feature in light of the area’s history.
For residents of Great Park Neighborhoods and Beacon Park, the restaurant adds a nearby option; T&T Supermarket is still being built out, and the other announced tenants add to the project's planned mix.
What just opened, and what it replaces
The new In-N-Out anchors The Canopy, a 12-acre, 90,000-square-foot retail and dining project at the corner of Bosque and Great Park Boulevard developed by Almquist Development, which broke ground in April 2025. The building itself runs 3,860 square feet with a 500-square-foot patio, seating for 34 people outside and 84 inside, and it opened with roughly 70 associates on staff, starting at $22 an hour, two dollars above California's mandated $20 minimum wage for fast-food chains with at least 60 locations statewide.
In-N-Out isn't the only tenant changing the daily math for people who live here. T&T Supermarket, a Canadian Asian grocery chain that only expanded into the United States in 2024, chose Irvine for its first Orange County location and is building out roughly 34,000 square feet at The Canopy. Osen Urban Table, a spinoff of Irvine's Izakaya Osen, has also signed on, along with Philz Coffee, H&H Bagels, Free People Movement, and Solestage. Before this year, none of that existed inside Great Park Neighborhoods proper. Residents drove out for all of it.
| Opened or announced at The Canopy | The errand it is expected to serve |
|---|---|
| T&T Supermarket, 34,000 sq ft | A grocery run that used to mean leaving the neighborhood entirely |
| In-N-Out, Great Park's first | The burger run that used to mean the Campus Drive line |
| Osen Urban Table | A sit-down dinner without a drive out first |
| Philz Coffee and H&H Bagels | A coffee-and-bagel stop that simply didn't exist here |
| Free People Movement and Solestage | Clothing and sneaker shopping without a longer trip |
Irvine's city council directed staff to finalize the ground lease with Almquist at an April 2025 meeting, with the city bonding roughly $14 million toward construction and Almquist covering that debt through lease payments projected at about $1 million a year. As Voice of OC reported, Councilmember William Go said at the time: "Together, we're going to be able to put forth an amazing retail center moving forward." Staff's own estimate at that meeting was that The Canopy would be complete and fully open by late 2026 or early 2027, which means the In-N-Out opening is the first wave of a project still finishing.
What the opening means for Great Park
The reporting around this project has been consistent on one point: Great Park Neighborhoods grew for years without a commercial core of its own. Residents drove to surrounding villages for groceries and for dinner because there wasn't a supermarket or a sit-down restaurant inside the boundary they lived in. The Canopy is adding those options as the area continues to develop.
The new location's 33-car lane is one notable feature of the opening, while The Canopy adds retail and dining options within Great Park.
The same shift is happening at night
The retail change isn't the only sign that Great Park stopped needing to borrow other neighborhoods' amenities in 2026. Great Park Live, the temporary amphitheater the city opened in June 2024 to bridge the gap after FivePoint Amphitheatre's 2023 closure, expanded its standing general admission capacity to 10,000 this year, and the city approved a footprint expansion for multi-stage festival configurations. The 2026 calendar runs from Pacific Symphony's SummerFest performances through an Olivia Rodrigo Presents show on August 29, a bill featuring Keyshia Cole, Mario, Pretty Ricky, and 112 on September 12, and Rise Against on October 23. Cultural programming has grown alongside the music: the Persian Festival of Love and Kindness runs October 3 and 4, and a festival celebrating Lao, Khmer, Hmong, Iu Mien, Thai, and Vietnamese food, music, and culture follows October 17 and 18. A permanent amphitheater, sized for 8,000 to 10,000 seats, is still planned to open in 2027, with Great Park Live serving as the bridge until then.
Great Park's sports complex reached its own milestone this year when the U.S. Men's National Team selected Great Park as its official Team Base Camp for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. That's a different kind of recognition than a new restaurant opening, but it points at the same underlying pattern. A neighborhood that was mostly construction fencing a few years ago is now hosting national team training and touring headliners in the same calendar year T&T Supermarket was still being built out.
What's still filling in
The Canopy isn't finished. Staff's own timeline puts full completion at late 2026 or early 2027, and the broader "Heart of the Park" plan around it includes an amphitheater, the Full Circle Farm, a large open green space called the Great Meadow, two lakes, and the Grand Promenade, a two-mile pedestrian walkway connecting Cadence Park to the Irvine train station. None of that is open yet. What's open now is the In-N-Out. The grocery store, coffee shop, bagel shop, and sit-down restaurant are part of The Canopy's announced tenant mix, within walking or short-driving distance for people who have been making longer trips for years.
For a resident weighing what this may change on a Tuesday, it's this: the In-N-Out is open, while other everyday options at The Canopy are still taking shape. The 33-car lane is one distinctive feature of the new location.
If you're watching how these changes are reshaping daily life in Great Park Neighborhoods, or wondering what a fuller Canopy and a permanent amphitheater might mean down the line, Julie Tran tracks these shifts village by village and is always glad to talk through what they mean for your corner of Irvine.