One El Paseo Building Now Covers a Coto de Caza Day, From First Coffee to Late Dinner

"Come check out this beautiful new local spot, mingle with other Coto moms, and enjoy a fun night together." That was the Coto Mothers Club's invitation to members for The Goldfinch's grand opening in Rancho Santa Margarita on Saturday, September 26, 2026, from 6 to 8 p.m. The event filled before the night arrived.

That event was about a restaurant opening. The bigger change is the address. The Goldfinch is in Suite A at 22312 El Paseo, and Redshift Coffee Roasters now operates in Suite C of the same building. Together, one Plaza El Paseo building now runs from a 6:30 a.m. espresso on weekdays to a dinner table until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. For a shopping center the city first approved in October 2000, that is a new kind of range.

One Address, Two Suites, Sixteen Hours

Put the two published schedules side by side and the building's day comes into focus.

Saturday is the longest stretch. Redshift unlocks at 7 a.m. and The Goldfinch takes its last diners until 11 p.m., so the building has something open for sixteen straight hours. Friday comes close at sixteen and a half, since the coffee shop opens at 6:30 that morning. The two businesses also overlap for six or seven hours in the middle of each day. That window begins when The Goldfinch opens at 11 a.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on weekends, and it runs until Redshift closes at 5 p.m.

That overlap shapes how the building works. A late-morning coffee and a lunch reservation don't need two parking spots in two centers anymore. They can happen within a few doors of each other.

Mornings in Suite C

Redshift Coffee Roasters is a family-owned specialty coffee company. It roasts its beans in-house, and its own description says the business began with "coffee roots and hands-on experience in Moscow." The Rancho Santa Margarita shop is its second. The first is in Lake Forest on Saddleback Court, between Seoul Eatery and Subway, and it keeps the same hours as the newer location.

In Plaza El Paseo, the shop sits between Crumbl Cookies and Cold Stone. When What Now OC reported the expansion in February 2026, the company was aiming for a spring opening, and an exact date was never given publicly. It is open now, with the weekday-early, weekend-slightly-later schedule shown above.

Early hours are what make the Suite C half matter. Its neighbor in Suite A opens at 10 a.m. at the earliest.

Evenings in Suite A, and the Restaurant That Came Before

Suite A has hosted a sit-down restaurant before. In March 2023, Greer's OC wrote about Lulu's Caafe, a new French-and-American restaurant at 22312 El Paseo, Suite A. It was owned by Samrat and Susan Bhosle, with chef Pascal Olhats consulting. The RSM Chamber scheduled its ribbon-cutting for May 18, 2023. By June 2026, the OC Register was describing the space as the former Lulu's Cafe and reporting that The Goldfinch would move in.

The original Goldfinch is at 2000 Main Street, Suite 200, in Irvine. The same group runs The 908 Restaurant in Long Beach and Jolie Restaurant & Rooftop in Huntington Beach. Rancho Santa Margarita is the first time the group has opened a second location of one of its existing concepts. Co-owner Ciaran Gough told What Now OC that the RSM interior and front facade would look different from Irvine's. The menus would stay largely the same, with legacy items carried over and a seasonal, chef-driven menu alongside them.

The OC Register named a few dishes planned for the Rancho Santa Margarita menu:

• Spicy tuna crispy rice
• Braised short ribs with garlic-thyme mashed potatoes
• A shrimp pho burger
• Ube Basque cheesecake

OpenTable lists the RSM location as casual dining in the $31 to $50 range, tagged for creative cocktails. The restaurant's own location page lists weekend brunch on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Irvine location runs a weekday happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m., but the RSM page does not list happy hour times yet. If an after-work drink is the plan, call ahead first.

Demand a week after the grand opening was easy to see. On Saturday, October 3, OpenTable showed the restaurant booked 106 times that day, with only a few late slots left for a party of two. At that point it had 17 reviews posted.

The Plaza Around Them

These two openings stand out because of what the plaza already had. A Rancho Santa Margarita Planning Commission staff report from December 3, 2025, places Plaza El Paseo roughly between Richard Reese Way, Alma Aldea and the Los Paseos neighborhood, with Kohl's, BevMo and Wood Ranch shown on its site map. The same report lists these restaurants and bars nearby:

• Natraj Indian Bistro
• Round Table Pizza
• Nami Sushi Bar
• Chipotle
• Moono
• The Stand
• Uncorked Wine Bar
• Todos Santos
• Tutto Fresco
• Wood Ranch
• Pinot's Palette

That list covers lunch, dinner and a glass of wine. It has no coffee roaster on it. Redshift's 6:30 a.m. opening is the first piece of the building's new day, and The Goldfinch's weekend brunch and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday close are the second.

The same December report covers Pho O-Oh Tasty, an existing Vietnamese restaurant at 22245 El Paseo, Suite A. It had applied for a conditional use permit to serve beer and wine. A month earlier, on November 5, 2025, the Planning Commission approved a conditional use permit for The Picklr, a pickleball facility at 22235 El Paseo. That approval is on record, but we have not found a confirmed opening date. Taken together, the city filings show a center adding reasons to stay longer across several storefronts.

The plaza is zoned Mixed-Use, which allows neighborhood-scale retail, restaurants and multifamily housing.

Planning a Day Around 22312 El Paseo

Using the published hours, this is how a full weekend day at the building works:

1. Coffee from 7 a.m. Redshift opens at 7 on Saturdays and Sundays, half an hour later than its 6:30 weekday start, and stays open until 5 p.m.
2. Brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Goldfinch serves weekend brunch in that window, and The Goldfinch's weekend doors open at 10.
3. A mid-afternoon stop before 5 p.m. This is the last chance to pair a coffee with anything next door before Redshift closes.
4. Dinner until 11 p.m. on Saturday or 9 p.m. on Sunday. Book through OpenTable. On October 3, the only Saturday slots left for two were 8:30 p.m. or later.

On weekdays the same building works for an early start and a late finish. Redshift opens at 6:30 a.m., and The Goldfinch stays open until 9 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays, 10 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 11 p.m. on Fridays.

Every new storefront like these at Plaza El Paseo changes what everyday life looks like around Coto de Caza, and that local detail belongs in any conversation about a home here. If you're curious how this corner of South County is shifting, or what that means for your property, Myhanh Nguyen would be glad to talk it through over coffee at Suite C. Schedule your free consultation and home valuation anytime.