What’s Missing in Old Town Temecula?

Memorial Day weekend in Los Angeles usually means spending at least one full day at the beach. Unfortunately, beach weather wasn’t forecasted, and the weather didn’t look all that great to lounge by the pool. With so many things to do in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, we decided to try something new. We knew it would be a great weekend for a day trip to wine country, so it was just a matter of deciding which of the L.A. area’s wine spots to hit up.

We’ve been to the Santa Ynez Valley. We’ve done the yummy Sideways tour. One of us has already done Los Alamos, Ojai, and Santa Barbara. We’ve checked out a couple of in-town tasting rooms. But what we really wanted was to find something that neither of us had done.

So we settled on Temecula.

Temecula Valley Wine Country

The Temecula Valley is known for its long hot summer days and cool evening breezes, creating ideal conditions for growing some amazing reds and whites. The wine trail winds through rolling hills filled with more than 30 wineries, each offering its own style of tasting rooms, wines, and amenities to please pretty much any taste or budget. It’s about an hour and a half drive outside of Los Angeles, but it could take another solid hour depending on the traffic on the 10 and the 15 and any number of freeways in between.

This wasn’t going to be a full-blown wine trip, though. We decided on one winery to check out, and we settled on Lorimar.

But just a minute — because this isn’t a post about Lorimar or any of the other wineries. We’ll get to those one day, we promise. We only mention it because it’s what got us to the Temecula Valley.

The clouds dispersed and the sun appeared just as we got there — as if it had been awaiting our arrival to present itself. The weather was pleasant. There was a nice breeze, and the sun was warm. We got lucky and scored some seating by the fountain, and we absolutely needed to put up the umbrella.

We didn’t know it but after a nice day of sipping six notable whites and reds and enjoying some fantastic people-watching on the patio at Lorimar, we would end up in Old Town Temecula.

Old Town Temecula

We were surprised to learn that Old Town Temecula was such a happening spot. A stone’s throw from the freeway, it’s set just west of the hotels and chain steakhouses (two directly across from each other, in fact).

It took about 20 minutes to drive from Lorimar (which is quite possibly one of the furthest wineries from the freeway exit) to Old Town Temecula. We pulled onto Old Town Front Street and started to look for parking.

As far as first impressions go, the lack of available parking concerned us. We attributed this to it being a holiday weekend. But we got lucky and found a nice spot on the south end. We hopped out of the car and started up the road in hopes of finding an out-of-the-way gem of a shop that we could rave about.

Things to Do in Old Town Temecula

For starters, there is no shortage of spots in Old Town Temecula to grab a burger and a beer. We walked past four or five classic rock beer pubs with outdoor seating. Spots with titles like The Gambling Cowboy, Blackbird Tavern, and Crush and Brew. The food smelled good and the beer looked tasty, but we had dinner plans and weren’t planning to stop for a meal. We passed an awesome coffee shop (hat tip to The Press Espresso and that Old Fashioned Iced Coffee), some gift shops, the very crowded antique store, a place where you can taste olive oil and vinegar, and ended up at the Old Town Sweet Shop for a milkshake to power us up for the trip back to Los Angeles. Adjacent to the ice cream parlor is a very notable candy shop where we picked up $10 worth of peanut butter chocolate and salted caramel fudge to pair with the Syrah we grabbed at Lorimar.

As we stood in line and awaited our creamy shakes, we agreed that Old Town Temecula seemed to be missing something. With all of the foot traffic this quaint street just west of the Temecula wineries were getting, and among all of the dining spots, there was something we wished we could have found, something that seemed to be missing.

What Old Town Temecula Really Needs

We walked the length of Old Town Front Street and stopped in every spot that looked like a shoppable boutique, but we were disappointed overall. Yes, there are a number of great gift shops that have some interesting styles in terms of clothes, footwear, and jewelry. But none of these seemed to have that curated touch of a boutique that we might be more accustomed to in Silverlake, on Melrose, or in Venice Beach.

We decided that what Old Town Temecula really needs is a fashion-forward boutique. It doesn’t need to be the highest of the high-end, but something a few inches taller than a traditional gift shop serving up wine accessories and golf apparel.

But maybe a shop like this does exist in Old Town Temecula, and maybe we missed it among the brewery-style restaurants. If that’s the case, please let us know! We would love to follow up this post with some additional context. And we’d love to find a reason to visit Old Town Temecula and the Temecula Valley again!