The most reliable way to spot upcoming Irvine restaurant openings is to follow the public paper trail: city planning applications and Planning Commission agendas, building permits, OC Health Care Agency plan check, California ABC liquor license applications, landlord leasing pages and local civic news. Each record appears at a different stage. Together they help you tell rumor from real projects.
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Planning: the city's pending applications list, development map and Planning Commission agendas.
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Building permits: the city's permit inquiry and records tools.
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Health plan check: the OC Health Care Agency's project status lookup.
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Liquor licenses: California ABC's License Lookup and daily New Applications report.
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Landlord and developer pages: leasing sites and official announcements.
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Local news: civic coverage of City Hall decisions that shape where Irvine eats.
Every Irvine neighborhood has a version of the same rumor: a paper-covered storefront, a "coming soon" post shared in a community group, a neighbor who heard a brand name from a friend. Sometimes the rumor is right. Often it's early, and now and then it's just wrong. A new restaurant has to pass through several public agencies first, though, and most of them publish something along the way. This guide covers those records roughly in the order they appear and explains what each one does and doesn't tell you.
A quick note on scope: this guide is about Irvine, California. Some agencies below, like the county health department and the state liquor regulator, cover all of Orange County or California. Their search tools will return results for Tustin, Costa Mesa and other neighboring cities too, so filter by Irvine addresses. Irvine Life is independent and isn't affiliated with the City of Irvine, UC Irvine or the Irvine Company.
Step 1: Start with planning records
Planning approvals are the earliest public signal for many restaurant projects, especially new buildings, drive-thrus and changes of use.
Pending Major Development Applications. The City of Irvine's Pending Major Development Applications page offers "a list of all active discretionary planning projects." It defines those as cases that need review by "the Department Director, the Zoning Administrator, the Subdivision Committee, the Planning Commission or the City Council." The list is a PDF titled "Discretionary Project List." Questions about it go to Community Development at 949-724-6308.
Development Projects Map. The city's Development Projects Map is an "interactive, web-based map to track development proposals." It covers "major developments approved in the last five years, including those under construction and recently completed," and the city says it "will be regularly updated as new proposals are submitted for review and as major projects start construction." Use it for big mixed-use and retail projects, where new dining clusters tend to show up.
Planning Commission agendas. Agendas are posted on the city's Granicus portal, and restaurant items often appear as conditional use permits (CUPs). For example, the April 16, 2026 Planning Commission agenda included a "Conditional Use Permit for a new fast-food restaurant with a drive-thru at Northwood Town Center, located at 13140 Yale Avenue in Planning Area 8 (Northwood)."
That item doesn't name a brand, and that's typical. A planning record can confirm that a restaurant use is proposed at a specific address well before anyone announces what it will be. Note the address. You'll use it in every step below.
Step 2: Follow the building permits
Not every restaurant needs a planning hearing. A new tenant moving into an existing restaurant space may go straight to building permits. The city's Building Permits and Inspections page explains how its systems are now split:
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Starting September 14, the city no longer accepts online no-plan-check permit applications through the legacy Irvine Permits site. Those go through "PermitsDIRECT!, powered by Symbium."
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The legacy Irvine Permits site "remains available for plan check inquiries, permit inquiries, and inspection requests." For someone tracking a project, this is the inquiry side to use.
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The city says the public can search building plans and certificates of occupancy through the City of Irvine Open Data Portal and Irvine Quick Records.
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The city also says monthly permits are available through its Transparency Portal.
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Records questions go to 949-724-6281.
Planning tip: when a storefront you pass goes dark, write down the exact suite address. Tenant improvement work for a restaurant, such as kitchen exhaust, plumbing and grease interceptors, usually needs permits. Having the precise address ready makes permit inquiries and records requests much easier. A certificate of occupancy is one of the later milestones to look for.
Step 3: Check the county health plan check
This step is the best indicator that a project is actually a food business. According to the OC Health Care Agency's Plan Check page, its "Plan Check unit reviews design and construction plans for all new and remodeled food facilities and public pools within Orange County." Any new restaurant in Irvine goes through this review.
The agency describes the build-out like this:
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Projects typically get up to two preliminary inspections. The agency recommends one at about 80% completion.
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One final inspection follows.
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The health permit is released after the final inspection and payment of fees.
The page links to a public "Check the status of my project" lookup and to Food Facility Inspection Reports. The agency says review timelines vary with project complexity. If a project's status shows it is moving toward final inspection, an opening is likely much closer than when the plans were first submitted. After a restaurant opens, the inspection reports become a separate tool worth knowing.
Step 4: Watch liquor license applications
Plenty of new restaurants won't serve alcohol, so this step works best for bars, brewpubs and full-service restaurants. When it applies, it's one of the most useful public signals because it can name the business.
License Lookup. California ABC's License Lookup gives "information about applicants and licensed individuals and businesses." That includes pending applicants, not only licensed businesses that are already open. You can search by license number, licensee name, business address and business name (DBA), and you can run reports by city, ZIP and county. Searching by the storefront address from Step 1 or 2 is often the quickest way to find out who is behind a project.
New Applications report. ABC's New Applications report is "a list of new applications taken by California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) on the selected report date." You pick a date from a dropdown. Columns include status, license type, primary owner and premises address, and premises city, county and ZIP. Scanning for Irvine on a regular basis is a low-effort way to catch new filings soon after they're submitted.
Step 5: Read landlord and developer pages carefully
Many Irvine restaurants lease space in shopping centers, so landlords are another source of information. Read them for what they actually say.
Irvine Company Retail's leasing site has a "Search Available Spaces" tool and center pages. Its Irvine Spectrum Center leasing page lists the center at 1,199,562 square feet of gross leasable area. When we checked that page while reporting this guide, it named no "coming soon" restaurants. Its "NOW OPEN" notices were for Hijinx Hotel and Holey Moley, which aren't restaurants.
A leasing page tells you what space is available, so it's a vacancy signal, not a confirmed list of tenants. A space that disappears from an available-space search may have been leased, but that alone doesn't tell you to whom. Developer announcements and press releases are more specific. They're also marketing, so treat any dates in them as targets.
Step 6: Follow local civic news
Big dining projects often depend on City Hall decisions about land, leases and financing. Voice of OC's Irvine section is active and covers those decisions. Recent headlines include "Irvine Moves to Protect Grocery Worker Jobs" (Sept. 29, 2026) and "Irvine Scrambles to Curb Budget Shortfall" (Sept. 25, 2026). Voice of OC's food columnist page lists May 6, 2023 as its most recent entry, so for Irvine dining news the civic section is the more useful one to follow. The Orange County Register also covers Orange County food and is worth adding to your reading list.
Case study: The Canopy at Great Park
The Canopy shows how several of these sources fit together for one project.
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Groundbreaking and scale: The Orange County Business Journal reported (May 5, 2025, Emily Santiago-Molina) that The Canopy broke ground on April 24, 2025. It described a 12-acre project with about 90,000 square feet of leasable space, planned chef-driven restaurants and curated retail, and T&T Supermarket as the first tenant.
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The anchor's announcement: T&T's April 24, 2025 press release said its 34,000-square-foot store at The Canopy is "slated for Winter 2026" and "will also create 180 job opportunities."
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The City Hall side: Voice of OC reported (April 24, 2025) that the project, developed by Almquist, was expected to be complete in late 2026 or early 2027. Phase 2 sits on about 10 acres of city-owned land, with three buildings that are mostly food and beverage, under a 30-year ground lease. The city would bond about $14 million, repaid through Almquist's lease payments of about $1 million a year. The plan includes food options inside two former MCAS El Toro hangars. Mayor Larry Agran said, "This has been anxiously awaited by so many people in the Great Park area."
Read together, these give you a groundbreaking date, a scale, an anchor tenant and a city financing structure. They also give you two targets set in 2025: "winter 2026" for T&T and "late 2026 or early 2027" for completion. Those are announced goals, not opening dates. To see how close the restaurants inside are to opening, use the same tools as for any other project: health plan check status, liquor license applications by address or business name, and building records.
How to read the signals
Each record means something different. Here's a rough guide to how much confidence each one gives you.
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Planning application or CUP: A restaurant use is proposed at a location. It's early and may not name a brand, and approval isn't guaranteed. Low to moderate confidence on timing.
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Building permit activity: Someone is investing in construction. Moderate confidence that something is coming, but permits alone may not show the concept or the operator.
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Health plan check: This confirms a food facility is being built or remodeled. Inspections, especially one near 80% completion followed by a final inspection, are strong signs the opening is getting close.
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ABC application: This often names the operator and business. It's useful for confirming who is coming, though the timing to an opening can vary.
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Landlord or developer announcement: The tenant is confirmed by the party leasing the space. Dates are targets and can slip.
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Social media rumor with none of the above: Keep watching, but don't make plans around it yet.
The strongest case is when several records agree: the same address shows up in planning or permits, in health plan check and in an ABC filing under a named business.
Your checklist
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Pending Major Development Applications (Discretionary Project List PDF)
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Building Permits and Inspections (links to Open Data Portal, Irvine Quick Records and the Transparency Portal)
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Legacy Irvine Permits for permit and plan check inquiries
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OC Health Care Agency Plan Check and its project status lookup
Related reading
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Art without a big night out: find an Irvine exhibition, class or campus performance
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Quail Hill or Bommer Canyon? Choose the outing before you choose the trail
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A Shorter Great Park Outing: Start With the Bosque and Upper Bee Trails
Sources
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City of Irvine, Building Permits and Inspections
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City of Irvine, Permits and Inspections (legacy Irvine Permits)
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City of Irvine, Pending Major Development Applications
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City of Irvine, Development Projects Map
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City of Irvine, Planning Commission Regular Meeting Agenda, April 16, 2026
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OC Health Care Agency, EH Plan Check
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California ABC, License Lookup
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California ABC, New Applications report
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Irvine Company Retail, Leasing and Irvine Spectrum Center leasing page
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Voice of OC, "Retail and Restaurants Finally Coming to the Irvine Great Park" (April 24, 2025)
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Orange County Business Journal, "Great Park's First Retail Center Breaks Ground" (May 5, 2025)
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PR Newswire, "T&T Supermarket to Open Its First Southern California Store in Irvine in Winter 2026" (April 24, 2025)
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Voice of OC, Irvine section and