On the morning of April 15, a line of shoppers waited outside a new building at 15650 Los Gatos Blvd. Whole Foods staff and nonprofit volunteers loaded boxes of onions, oranges, apples, pasta sauce, canned vegetables and peanut butter into an all-electric refrigerated van, which the store gave to West Valley Community Services that day. Mayor Rob Moore and Vice Mayor Maria Ristow were there, and shoppers tried samples of cheese, coffee and pastries, according to The Mercury News.

That opening started a chain of changes. In the months since, the relocation has emptied the old Whole Foods space, lined up a San Francisco grocer to fill it as part of a Cornerstone reset that also brought in a fitness club, and helped end a 56-year run across the street. Every one of these changes falls within a few addresses of the same corner where Los Gatos Boulevard meets Blossom Hill Road.

One Relocation, Three Changes

The old Whole Foods sat in Cornerstone Shopping Center and had served Los Gatos for more than 30 years. It closed April 12. Three days later the new store opened at a little over 43,000 square feet. Store manager Kendall Witthans told The Mercury News the old store was about 19,000 square feet, so the new one is more than twice the size. The new building belongs to Sand Hill Property Company's redevelopment of 15500 to 15650 Los Gatos Blvd., which pairs the grocery store with a Tesla showroom and service center, as San José Spotlight reported when the project was planned.

The move left a large empty space at Cornerstone, next to the empty storefront Rite Aid left when it closed its stores. Cornerstone's property manager filled both. Club Studio took the former Rite Aid space at 15920 Los Gatos Blvd., and Gus's Community Market signed for the former Whole Foods space at 15980, according to The Mercury News.

The third change came from across the road. "The Battle of Blossom Hill grocers has ended before it had much of a chance to heat up," the Los Gatan wrote in August. Four months after the new Whole Foods opened across Los Gatos-Almaden Road from Nob Hill Foods, Nob Hill confirmed it would leave.

The Stretch, Address by Address

With the storefronts changing hands, it helps to see where everything sits right now. Here is every grocery and anchor store from this story, in order up the boulevard, with Lunardi's just off it on Blossom Hill Road.

Away from the boulevard, Safeway runs three Los Gatos stores: 470 N. Santa Cruz Ave., 1500 Pollard Rd. and 15549 Union Ave.

A Store Designed Around Entertaining

The new Whole Foods is laid out differently from the old one, and the store has said why. Its opening announcement listed a coffee and juice bar, more seating, hot-food and salad bars, pizza, made-to-order sandwiches, fresh sushi, counters for cheese, meat and seafood, and a large wine and craft beer selection.

Witthans told The Mercury News this is the first Whole Foods with a Java and Juice bar. She explained the bigger wine and spirits section, stocked from Northern California wineries and breweries, this way:

Customers in Los Gatos "love to host."

That matters this time of year. This is the first Thanksgiving with the larger store open, and its cheese counter, seafood counter and wine section are right next door to Trader Joe's. It is also one of the last holiday seasons with Nob Hill still open across the road.

Nob Hill's Last Year on the Boulevard

Nob Hill Foods has anchored El Gato Village Shopping Center at 15710 Los Gatos Blvd. since 1971. Hoodline, citing a Raley's statement first reported by The Mercury News, said the store will close at the end of June 2027 after its parent company, Raley's Cos., chose not to extend the lease. SFGATE reported that Raley's made the decision after reviewing the store's performance and current economic conditions.

Raley's has been closing other stores too. According to the Los Gatan, it closed its Mountain View store in May and its Roseville store in January. Hoodline reported that Raley's will try to place as many Los Gatos employees as possible at its other locations.

So for the coming months, Nob Hill is still open. The store has more than eight months left, which takes it through this holiday season and into next spring. No replacement tenant for the El Gato Village space has been announced.

What Gus's Brings From San Francisco

The other store coming to Cornerstone is Gus's, a family business that started in 1981 as Haight Street Market in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury. The late Gus Vardakastanis founded it with his wife Georgia and his father, and his sons Dimitri and Bobby run it today. It has five San Francisco stores, on Noriega Street, Haight Street, Harrison Street and Channel Street, plus Canyon Market. The Los Gatan reported that the Los Gatos store, at 18,000 square feet, will be the company's first in the South Bay.

On its own site, Gus's highlights daily specials, signature sandwiches and salads to go, and a catering menu of appetizers, platters, entrées and sides. Its San Francisco stores post hours of 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., except Canyon Market, which closes at 8 p.m. The company hasn't yet said which departments or hours the Los Gatos store will have.

The Gus's space is only 18,000 square feet, a little smaller than the roughly 19,000-square-foot Whole Foods that Witthans said the store had outgrown. When Gus's opens, the boulevard will have two specialty grocers: a big Whole Foods with plenty of prepared food, and a smaller store run by a San Francisco family in the room Whole Foods left.

Club Studio, the other new tenant at Cornerstone, has four studio rooms for strength training, indoor cycling, hot yoga and reformer Pilates, according to the company's October announcement. The Los Gatan also noted that Lunardi's is about five blocks north of the new Whole Foods.

The Calendar From Here

The remaining changes come one at a time over the next eight months.

1. November 14, 2026. Club Studio holds its official grand opening, open to the community, with giveaways and local vendors. A Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting is planned beforehand.
2. Thanksgiving through the new year. All four grocers now operating on this stretch stay open: Trader Joe's, the new Whole Foods, Nob Hill and Lunardi's. Gus's is not yet open.
3. Spring 2027. Gus's opens at 15980 Los Gatos Blvd., if the timeline in Cornerstone's August announcement holds. The Los Gatan gave only "2027."
4. End of June 2027. Nob Hill closes at El Gato Village after 56 years.

If Gus's opens in the spring as planned, there will be a short stretch before the end of June when Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Nob Hill, Lunardi's and Gus's are all open within a few blocks of each other. If the opening slips past June, the boulevard will briefly have one grocer fewer than it does today.

Stilla Raissi's practice follows those changes along Los Gatos Boulevard as part of reading the town's micro-markets. If you'd like to talk about what a changing corner means for a property you own nearby, Stilla Raissi is glad to have a private conversation. Request a Private Valuation.