Stevens Creek Boulevard's Empty Storefronts Are Finally Filling In

How long has the old Sprouts at the Crossroads Center been dark? According to the City of Cupertino's September 30 City Manager's newsletter, the space at 20558 Stevens Creek Blvd. sat empty from 2023 until this month. SFGATE puts its size at 20,000 square feet. Down the road, the former Vitamin Shoppe at 20803 Stevens Creek Blvd. was empty even longer, from 2019 until Preferred Bank moved in.

Both spaces are filled now, and a third has a tenant lined up. The new tenants share one trait. The biggest of them was built to bring in shoppers from well beyond Cupertino, and on its first day it did.

The former Sprouts drew about 1,700 shoppers on day one

Hashi Market opened at 10 a.m. on Friday, October 9. SFGATE reported that the first shoppers lined up at 7:30 a.m., about 1,700 came through by closing, and cashiers rang up 300 transactions an hour for most of the morning. The chain has six stores in New York City, and Cupertino is its first on the West Coast.

The company told SFGATE why it picked this address. Ava Liu, Hashi's head of operations, called the store "our flagship store in California" and said Cupertino was chosen because "it's a central place for California. Apple is here. Everyone knows it."

The rest of the Bay Area's 2026 grocery openings show how unusual that choice is. In SFGATE's account, T&T Supermarket opened in San Jose in June, Tokyo Central opened at Emeryville's Bay Street mall in February, and H Mart opened in Dublin in March. Those are big regional sites. Hashi put its flagship in a neighborhood shopping center at Stevens Creek and South De Anza, the Mercury News noted, on the same corner where Sprouts used to be.

How the space emptied matters too. Supermarket News reported in May 2023 that the Cupertino store was one of 10 slated to close as the chain moved toward smaller stores. The same 20,000 square feet that Sprouts gave up in favor of smaller stores is now where Hashi chose to open its California flagship.

What's inside, and when to go

The store is a mix of grocery and specialty retail. SFGATE described imported Japanese snacks, produce, seafood, meat and sake. There's a large selection of goods from Hokkaido, including beef, rice, cheesecake and melons priced at $59. The store also has its own bakery and two full aisles of beauty and lifestyle products from brands such as Senka and Canmake. Hashi's own site lists sushi, seafood, produce, meat and catering.

Two details from KRON's pre-opening tour are useful if you live nearby:

• Hours: daily, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• Evening markdown: grab-and-go sushi is 30% off after 8 p.m.

Those late hours give neighbors an option opening-week visitors may not think of. Opening day was a long-line, out-of-town event. A Tuesday at 9 p.m. is mostly a stop for people who live a few minutes away.

Four addresses, about 34,000 square feet

Hashi is the largest of the changes the city listed in its September 30 newsletter, but not the only one. Here's what has opened or been announced along Stevens Creek Blvd. since late summer, with the size of each space:

1. Hashi Market, 20558 Stevens Creek Blvd. 20,000 square feet. Former Sprouts, empty since 2023. Opened October 9.
2. Preferred Bank, 20803 Stevens Creek Blvd. 3,280 square feet. Former Vitamin Shoppe, empty since 2019. Now open as the bank's Silicon Valley Regional Office, Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
3. Jingege & YaoYao, Marketplace, 19628 Stevens Creek Blvd. 4,370 square feet. A Chinese restaurant that opened in late August, open daily 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
4. Specialty's Café & Bakery, 20488 Stevens Creek Blvd. About 6,550 square feet. The former Le Boulanger. Plans for the interior buildout have been submitted, and no opening date has been announced.

Together that's about 34,200 square feet, and all but 6,550 of it is already open. Preferred Bank's space alone sat dark for roughly seven years.

Many longtime Peninsula office workers will remember Specialty's. The Mercury News reported in March 2021 that the bakery closed all its locations in 2020, and its founders reopened a single store in Mountain View that month. They said more locations would depend on demand. Palo Alto Online covered the same relaunch. A 6,550-square-foot Cupertino café would be a big step past that one store. The opening date will come from the city or the company, and neither has announced one.

The city has been promoting the corridor alongside these openings. City Manager Tina Kapoor's September 30 letter introduced Hashi alongside the second annual Cupertino Restaurant Week, which ran October 5 through 11 and is now over.

A new bike route to the same corner

Hashi's opening landed just after Stevens Creek got a new bike route. The city's project page says Phase 2A adds separated Class IV bikeways on both sides of Stevens Creek Blvd. from Wolfe Road to De Anza Boulevard. Its September 10, 2026 update called construction substantially complete: the concrete barriers and signal upgrades are in, and crews are making final adjustments before the bike signals go into operation.

The De Anza end of that stretch is the corner where the Crossroads Center and Hashi sit. Phase 1, from Wolfe to Tantau, was finished in January 2021. The next phase, Phase 2B, is planned to run from De Anza Boulevard to Mary Avenue and has no date posted. The project drew $807,000 in construction funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's One Bay Area Grant program.

Driving the east end is harder this fall. VTA closed the Wolfe Road on-ramp to northbound I-280 starting Friday, October 2, for about a year, as part of the I-280/Wolfe Road Interchange Improvements Project. Northbound drivers on Wolfe are sent to the existing loop on-ramp, and updates are posted at vta.org/280wolfe.

In short, the corridor now has more reasons to visit, a finished bike route to its busiest new corner, and a slower highway on-ramp on the Wolfe end through next fall.

The corridor calendar, late October through early December

Several upcoming city and college events are on or just off Stevens Creek. The De Anza College dates use the same parking lots that sit along the boulevard.

• Saturday, October 24, 5 to 8 p.m.: Monster Mash at Quinlan Community Center, 10185 North Stelling Road, with games, trick-or-treating, crafts and pumpkin decorating.
• Saturday, October 31: Baer Blacksmith Shop demonstrations at McClellan Ranch Preserve, 22221 McClellan Road.
• Saturdays, November 7, 14, 21 and 28, noon to 4 p.m.: Free open houses at the McClellan Ranch Environmental Education Center, with animal ambassadors and hands-on activities.
• Saturday, November 7, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.: The De Anza College flea market in Parking Lots A and B, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd. The college's event listing counts 360 vendors and more than 650 booths.
• Saturday, November 14, 8 a.m. to noon: The city's free Paper Shredding and Environmental Recycling event at De Anza College Parking Lot A. No registration is needed, and the city asks for identification showing Cupertino residency.
• Friday, December 4, 6 to 8 p.m.: Community Tree Lighting at Quinlan Community Center, with a local choir and visits with Santa.

If you're heading to De Anza College on either of those November Saturdays, Hashi opens at 8 a.m. at the Crossroads Center, a short trip down Stevens Creek. Our July look at Memorial Park covers the summer calendar on the same boulevard, and our Cupertino neighborhood page has more on the city.

When a long-empty commercial space reopens, nearby homeowners usually ask what it means for their street. At David Kim Group, we follow these Stevens Creek openings address by address. If you want to know how the new businesses near you fit into your plans, Schedule a Consultation and we'll go through it with you.