For those who grew up in the L.A. area (like myself) or other well-established cities, Irvine may come across to some as being a "cookie cutter" type of town. Irvine was indeed built as a master-planned city with its establishment occurring almost 40 years ago, but there's much more to Irvine than homes that all look alike and perfectly placed palm trees everywhere.
One example of its diversity is in one of its busiest shopping centers, Heritage Plaza. It is located on Culver between Walnut and the 5 freeway. It includes a good mix of "chain" stores like CVS Pharmacy, Ralph's, Togo's, The Elephant Bar, and Wendy's, just to name a few. It also has a Bank of America and Chase bank. But in addition to these more commercialized places, there are several stores and restaurants that are not big franchises like those that you can find at every other street corner like Starbucks, McDonald's, etc.
Here's a quick video highlighting some of these stores/restaurants:
Of course, there's always the argument that Irvine is also made up of a bunch of strip malls -- I'm sure many of you have heard that before. But to have a strip mall with a bunch of really unique stores and restaurants mixed in with more familiar ones makes the shopping experience at Heritage Plaza much more interesting. Don't you want to check out Mochilato now (there's one in Fullerton too)?
For more information on Irvine and other Orange County cities, feel free to contact me.
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