Space and time seem to stretch out in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. Single-family homes and multiple-car driveways stretch out on wide, busy boulevards and in rolling communities and side streets lined by big green lawns.

Whole decades have a way of coming and going in the Valley, too; restaurants often get years to grow slowly in communities like Burbank and Northridge, a retail feat that simply seems impossible in the many high-turnover neighborhoods on the other side of the hill.