How many times have you parked behind the Trader Joe's on Hyperion, grabbed groceries, and walked past the storefronts next door without looking up? This fall those storefronts changed more than they had in decades. Within about two weeks, a Santa Monica bakery opened in the space Say Cheese held for nearly 53 years. Next door, a filing with Los Angeles City Planning proposed replacing the Tenants of the Trees building with a five-story apartment building designed by Bjarke Ingels Group.
Neither change began with a tenant's decision. Both trace back to the owners of the buildings, and that shapes what the strip between Trader Joe's and Gelson's is likely to become over the next few years.
The bread company the cheese shop was told about
Start at 2800 Hyperion. For most of its life, that address belonged to Say Cheese, a gourmet shop that announced its last public day as Wednesday, April 23, 2025, after nearly 53 years. In a Los Angeles Times report, the shop's owner cited a rent increase as the main reason for closing. The Times also reported that the shop had been on a month-to-month lease since 2021 and that the landlords said they had found a bread-company tenant.
That bread company turned out to be Jyan Isaac Bread. It opened in the space on Monday, November 2, 2026. If you already know the name, it's probably from the farmers' markets. Eater LA traces the business to 2020, when baker Jyan Isaac began selling to neighbors and friends after losing his job at Venice's Gjusta during the pandemic. The business added a pizza shop in 2022 and became a regular at farmers' markets across the region. It went on to open a full bakery and cafe in Santa Monica and a commissary bakery in Culver City. Eater called the Silver Lake opening one of the year's most anticipated.
Here's how the new room works on a weekday:
| Jyan Isaac Bread, 2800 Hyperion Ave. | |
|---|---|
| Hours | 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily |
| Morning | Bagel sandwiches, bagels, bread and pastries from opening |
| Lunch | Salads and sandwiches, served 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
| Weekends | Brunch, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
| Seating | 32 indoors, plus 16 on the outdoor patio |
The menu includes the seeded sourdough and the French onion grilled cheese, plus a chicken katsu sandwich that Eater describes as served on shokupan Texas toast. Until now, the closest Jyan Isaac counter for most of Silver Lake was in Santa Monica. Eater described that reach in terms of the freeway map, noting that people living east of the 405 can now get the grilled cheese without the drive.
The interior is by M. Winter Design. Eater reports that it uses locally sourced materials, local furniture makers, custom cabinets and vintage lighting found around the area. That local sourcing lines up with what the old tenant was known for. Say Cheese built a following over five decades on this block. Its successor arrives with a statewide reputation and a room built from neighborhood materials.
Next door, the building owner made the filing
Walk a few steps north to 2810–2812 N. Hyperion Ave., home of the Tenants of the Trees cocktail bar. On October 22, 2026, an application was filed with Los Angeles City Planning to replace the building with a new mixed-use structure.
The applicant is the bar's own side of the property. Urbanize LA identifies the property owner as H for Hyperion, LLC. The Real Deal reports that, based on state business records, the LLC is linked to a co-owner of Tenants of the Trees, which opened about a decade ago.
The filing describes this proposal:
- Height and size: five stories, about 59 feet
- Homes: 28 apartments, all one-bedroom according to Urbanize, totaling 23,740 square feet of residential floor area
- Street level: ground-floor commercial space, listed in the city's case summary at 2,500 square feet
- Affordability: five apartments set aside for lower-income renters, in exchange for density bonus incentives that allow a larger building than zoning would otherwise permit
- Design: Bjarke Ingels Group, with renderings showing a contemporary low-rise structure clad in steel
The architect may be the most surprising part. Urbanize notes that Bjarke Ingels Group is better known for eye-catching skyscrapers. In Southern California its work includes a recently opened expansion at Claremont McKenna College and a long-planned tower complex in the Downtown Arts District. On Hyperion, the same firm is working at the scale of a neighborhood shopping strip, beside a grocery store parking lot.
What the filing sets in motion, and what it doesn't yet
The application is under city review, with no approval issued. The city case page lists the project as an Expanded Administrative Review for a Density Bonus project, with density bonus incentives requested under Los Angeles Municipal Code section 12.22 A.37. The letters in the case number match City Planning's own code list. EAR stands for Expanded Administrative Review, DB for Density Bonus, and VHCA for Vesting Housing Crisis Act.
According to Urbanize and The Real Deal, this expedited path does not require a separate environmental clearance or a public hearing. Recent Silver Lake projects have drawn long community meetings, so many neighbors may expect the same here. On the city's case page, no hearing date is scheduled. Anyone who wants to follow the review can bookmark that page, since that's where the city's case record is kept.
On the building side, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety has a new-building application on record for the same address. That record shows "Permit Issued: No" and no pending inspections. The planning application went in during October 2026, no permit has been issued, and the building that houses Tenants of the Trees is still standing on Hyperion.
The Real Deal frames the proposal against a citywide housing target. The state requires Los Angeles to plan for 456,643 new housing units by 2029, including 184,721 affordable units. At the scale of this block, the proposal would mean 28 apartments above shop space, steps from both grocery anchors.
How the block's evenings could change
Right now the bakery closes at 3 p.m., and nightlife on this stretch has long meant the bar next door. Eater reports that starting in 2027, Jyan Isaac Bread plans to stay open into the evening as a wine bar serving breads, cheese, charcuterie and tinned fish.
If that plan holds, a business that started as a farmers' market bread stand could become one of the block's evening rooms. It would sit in a space last known for cheese, next to a building whose owner has filed to replace it. Wine, cheese and bread at 2800 Hyperion would bring back some of what the address sold for half a century, under a new name and on a different schedule.
For evenings in the meantime, the nearest new option is on Sunset. Swingers, the classic diner, started takeout on October 20 in the former All Day Baby space at 3200 W. Sunset Blvd. Takeout opened that night from 6 to 9 p.m. and expanded to 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. starting October 21, and owner Stephanie Wilson plans to open the dining room in December. For a sit-down dinner, Briciola opened in mid-September at 3131 W. Sunset Blvd. in the former Spoon & Pork space. It serves Italian-Brazilian cooking from Mattia Raimondi, with natural wines.
On Hyperion, though, the next few years will depend less on which tenants sign leases and more on what the owners decide to build. One owner brought in a bakery with statewide reach, and another filed plans for apartments over shops. Both decisions are already part of a grocery run between Trader Joe's and Gelson's.
At Carolina Kramer, we follow blocks like this one storefront by storefront: who owns the building, what's been filed, and what's opening next door. If you live near the Hyperion strip and want to talk about how changes like these could shape your street, we'd be glad to compare notes over a loaf from the new bakery.
