Siran Babayan
A stroll through Montrose Shopping Park feels like a time-machine trip to a nonspecific decade. In fact, there's a watch store called Time Machine. A few miles from shopping behemoths such as the Americana at Brand and Glendale Galleria, this Main Street–esque stretch of Glendale looks painstakingly vintage. Aside from a few corporate exceptions such as Trader Joe's, Starbucks and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, the 40-plus shops and businesses are of the independent, mom-and-pop variety, selling everything from toys and quilts to vacuum cleaners and sewing machines. There's a small retro bowling alley, a Christian Science Reading Room and Faye's, a two-story lingerie shop for elderly women. Though it can get crowded during holidays and community events — arts and crafts festival, film festival, car show — the pace is refreshingly slow, which gives you plenty of time to choose from one of the many restaurants and eateries, whether it's The T Room tea house or Danish ice-cream parlor Paradis.
Along Honolulu Ave. between Verdugo Road and Rosemont Avenue, Glendale, 91020. shopmontrose.com.
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