In a report by IECN, Jerry Tessier said, "We're hanging in there," about a year after his family's company reopened downtown Redlands' historic citrus packing house as a food hall. He added, "Honestly, it's not doing the sales that we thought to start out with, like we have at our food lab in Riverside." The comment highlights a difference between full occupancy and sales below the ownership group's expectations.
At Harkins Mountain Grove 16, the Redlands Cinema Classic, a film series that has run since 1999, opened its 2026 fall lineup.
This month, Redlands offers both a food hall and a film series.
Inside Redlands Public Market
The building at the center of this is the old Mutual Orange Distributors packing house, a masonry-and-steel structure with brick walls, arched doorways, and skylights that once graded and shipped Redlands citrus when oranges were fetching top dollar per pound. Arteco Partners, the Tessier family's Pomona-based firm, bought it after the city sold off a building that had been broken into, vandalized, red-tagged, and left leaking for years. The restoration ran roughly $11 million. It opened seven days a week in February 2025 as Redlands Public Market, with a grand opening that spring.
What's inside now is genuinely full. More than a dozen independently owned food and beverage vendors operate out of the space, including Take Your Seat, a Southern California brunch concept opening its third location, and Cornerstone BBQ, a Redlands favorite also opening its third location, this one built around a dry-aged deli where you can pick a cut from the butcher case and have it prepared on the spot. Downstairs, the basement holds My Friend's House, a speakeasy Tessier co-owns with Alex Teran, who also runs Riverside's Game Lab. There's an arcade branded the Riverside Game Lab, a farm stand, a 7,000-square-foot outdoor courtyard with live music, and a vintage 1904 trolley car you can eat inside.
None of that is a rumor or a soft-launch promise. It's the finished product, curated deliberately. Tessier has said the leasing process meant turning down concepts that didn't fit, including several pizza shops that wanted in, in favor of a more varied mix. Even with that much care in the build-out, and even with the courtyard doing what courtyards do on a warm evening, the first year came in under what the ownership group expected, by their own account, measured against the sales pace of their existing food hall in Riverside.
That account describes the market; the Cinema Classic offers another part of Redlands' local scene.
Redlands Cinema Classic's Fall Series
The Redlands Cinema Classic is a film series founded in 1999 by Annette Weis as a fundraiser for the Redlands Art Association's Margaret Clark Art Education Enrichment Fund. It presents seasonal screenings in spring and fall, with foreign, art, independent, or specialty titles, and every dollar left over after costs goes to arts education in Redlands schools. Tickets are $20, sold online, at the Redlands Art Association gallery on State Street, or at the theater door.
This year's fall series opened September 2 with Primavera, an Italian feature about violinist and composer Antonio Vivaldi teaching at the Ospedale della Pietà. It continues through Lebanon on September 9 and 10, a story of childhood sweethearts in Beirut, then moves through its Brazil and Japan features later in the month before closing with two showings of the Manhattan Short Film Festival on September 30 and October 1, where Redlands audiences vote on ten international short films alongside more than a hundred thousand filmgoers in cities across six continents.
The series' previous venue, LOOK Cinemas, told organizers ahead of its spring 2025 season that it could no longer host the screenings for technical and economic reasons. The series moved to Harkins Mountain Grove 16 and kept its regular Wednesday evening and Thursday matinee slots, continuing a run that began in 1999.
Two Redlands Attractions, Different Histories
RPM's courtyard, its speakeasy, its dry-aged BBQ counter, all of that is real and worth your evening. Cinema Classic offers foreign, art, independent, or specialty films and supports arts education in Redlands schools.
In the IECN report, Tessier pointed to a similar early turnover at Riverside's Food Lab, where an original vendor was replaced, calling that kind of turnover "not uncommon" in a food hall's first year. The building's original coffee shop already closed and a new one is expected to take its place.
What's On the Calendar This Month
If you're deciding how to spend time in Redlands this September, here are some options:
- Redlands Public Market, 330 3rd St., open daily, with the courtyard, arcade, farm stand, and My Friend's House speakeasy all running. Weekend evenings draw the bigger crowds; weekday afternoons are your best bet if you want the space to yourself.
- Redlands Cinema Classic Fall 2026, Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. and Thursday matinees at 2:30 p.m. at Harkins Mountain Grove 16, running through the Manhattan Short Film Festival on September 30 and October 1. Tickets are $20 online or at the Redlands Art Association gallery on State Street.
- Downtown's Morning Market, the city's certified farmers market, runs Saturdays from 7 to 11 a.m. through November 21 at the municipal lot off Redlands Boulevard, with more than 25 vendors selling produce, baked goods, and handmade items.
None of these require you to pick a side. Redlands Public Market offers food and gathering spaces, while Cinema Classic offers seasonal films and a run dating to 1999.
If you're the kind of resident who tracks this stuff because you're curious what it means for property here, not just what's for dinner, our Inland Empire neighborhood guide tracks the broader patterns across Redlands and the rest of the region. And if changes in Redlands' local scene ever have you wondering what your own place downtown is actually worth, Acquire'd Real Estate will get you a straight answer. Get a cash offer whenever you're ready to find out.
