In-N-Out Opens at The Canopy: What Great Park's New Shopping Center Means for Irvine Homeowners

What opened

In-N-Out Burger opened at The Canopy at the Great Park on September 4, 2026, and it was the first tenant to open in the Almquist center. Orange County Business Journal described the restaurant as about 3,860 square feet. The same article said five more businesses would begin opening this year: McConnell's Fine Ice Creams, Palmetto Superfoods, Brooks Running, Baba's Hot Chicken, and La Jolla Cosmetic.

The developer, Almquist, publishes the center at 8200 Great Park Boulevard, Irvine, CA 92618. On canopygreatpark.com the center is a 12-acre destination with more than 90,000 square feet of retail, dining, and daily services, in the Great Park Neighborhoods. The site still says the center is coming late 2026. That line is behind the burger stand that is already open. Treat the rest of the calendar as a plan, not a finished fact.

Dan Almquist, the developer's founder and CEO, said in a statement published that day: "This is just the beginning, with many more openings ahead."

What is still coming

On September 14, 2026, Orange County Business Journal reported that nearly 20 tenants are in the works and that The Canopy has about 90,000 square feet of leasable space. The anchor is T&T Supermarket, an Asian grocer from Canada, in a 34,000-square-foot space. It was the first business announced at the 2025 groundbreaking.

The same article says the March tenant round included Philz Coffee, and that H&H Bagels is opening its first Orange County location at the center. Brooks Running, named on September 4, is making its California debut there. Almquist expects the remaining businesses to open in phases from late 2026 through early 2027.

Those dates are the developer's estimates and may change. A grocery, a coffee counter, and a bagel shop change how a Saturday works. They do not change a recorded sale.

What it means at $1.5 million and up

Everyday convenience close to home adds appeal. A household that already lives in the Great Park Neighborhoods, or is choosing between Irvine villages, can put a supermarket and a short list of restaurants on the same side of the map as the house. That is a real part of how the house lives, especially for buyers who are done with a 20-minute errand for milk.

It is not a pricing model. Recent nearby sales set the price: the village, the lot, the age of the build, and the condition of the rooms. A restaurant opening is not a comparable. A seller who adds the new center to the list price, without a closed sale that supports it, is arguing with the market. A buyer who treats the center as a reason to ignore those sales is doing the same thing from the other side.

Orchard Hills is a different planning area from the Great Park. The City of Irvine planning-areas map printed June 15, 2022 labels Orchard Hills as planning area 1 and the Great Park as planning area 51. The Irvine page is the wider map. If the house you are pricing is in Orchard Hills, use Orchard Hills sales, not a retail story from the Great Park.

Homes listed at $5,000,000 or more are a separate conversation about the listing brokerage fee. That page is the 1% listing fee. It does not apply itself to a Great Park address, and it does not move a comp.

Sources

• Emily Santiago-Molina, "In-N-Out Burger Opens at The Canopy at Great Park," Orange County Business Journal, September 4, 2026. ocbj.com
• Emily Santiago-Molina, "The Canopy at Great Park Starts to Take Shape," Orange County Business Journal, September 14, 2026. ocbj.com
• The Canopy at Great Park, developer site. canopygreatpark.com
• City of Irvine planning-areas map, printed June 15, 2022. city GIS PDF

Opening timelines in this note are the developer's estimates and may change. A Personal Home Report is a comparison of one address. It is not an appraisal, and a new store is not a comparable sale.