The Pacific Electric Trail Just Got a New Lineup of Stops

If you walk or bike the Pacific Electric Trail on a regular basis, you already have a mental map of it. You know where the shade is, which street crossings have quick signal changes, and which cross street means you are close enough to a snack that you can justify the extra half mile. For years, part of that map included a right turn off the trail toward Kings Brewing Company on Vineyard Avenue. That turn does not lead where it used to.

At the same time, a run of new food businesses has been landing along Foothill Boulevard, the road the trail parallels for most of its length through Rancho Cucamonga. Some are open, others are still taking shape, and one is still just a name on an Instagram post. Taken together, they change what a stop-and-eat trail loop actually looks like right now, in 2026, compared to a year ago.

The Turn That Used to Be There

Kings Brewing Company was not a random taproom. Demetrius and Jeremiah Cooper started the brewery in 2015 after selling their family home to fund it, and it grew into one of the city's more recognizable craft beer names, known for hop-forward IPAs, dessert-inspired stouts, and a rotating lineup that once included a batch of beer brewed with M&M candies. The taproom sat at 8560 Vineyard Avenue, a street that crosses the Pacific Electric Trail close enough that trail regulars used it as an unofficial turnaround point.

That location is closed. In 2025, the Cooper brothers began relocating the taproom to Upland, into the former space of Charlie's Bar & Grill at 296 North 2nd Avenue. If you only read the relocation news, you would assume Kings left Rancho Cucamonga entirely.

The company's own site tells a slightly different story. It still lists a Rancho Cucamonga address, at 9020 Archibald Avenue, alongside the Upland location. Archibald is another street trail users already know, since it is one of the cross streets people use as a landmark when deciding which direction to head on the trail. So the brewery did not disappear from the corridor. It moved from one trail-adjacent street to another, a few blocks over. If Vineyard Avenue was your old turnaround, Archibald Avenue is the new one worth checking.

What's Filling In Along Foothill

While Kings was sorting out its move, a separate wave of food businesses has been landing on Foothill Boulevard itself, in a sequence that runs west to east from the Route 66 Trailhead:

• Route 66 Trailhead, 8476-8500 Foothill Blvd. Still the main access point for this stretch of trail, sitting near the base of Red Hill on the site of the city's first homestead and the original "Mother Vineyard."
• Vallarta Supermarkets, 9040 Foothill Blvd. A 60,000-square-foot store that opened April 1, 2026, the chain's sixth Inland Empire location. It debuted Vallarta's first-ever in-store seafood counter, Costa de Oro, serving made-to-order seafood tostadas and shrimp tacos. The opening created 219 local jobs and the company donated $7,500 across five local schools and charities as part of the launch.
• Wagyu Factory, reportedly heading to 10890 Foothill Blvd. This one is still unsettled. As of last summer a company representative described the Rancho Cucamonga site as still in the works, even though the brand's Instagram had already listed it as coming soon. Worth checking before you plan a trip around it.
• Primecut Taqueria, 11561 W. Foothill Blvd, Suite 101. Owner Ivan Maldonado is bringing the concept to the Inland Empire at this location near Victoria Gardens. The menu runs on tacos al carbon with mesquite charcoal-grilled meats, plus a keto taco built on cheese and meat instead of a tortilla.
• Fogo de Chão, 12240 Foothill Blvd. The Brazilian steakhouse chain signed a lease for an 8,257-square-foot space here, its 16th location in California, built around an open churrasco grill and a Market Table of seasonal salads and cured meats. The lease was reported in 2025 with a planned opening in the second half of that year.

That is four food businesses, at different stages, distributed across roughly the same stretch of Foothill that the trail runs alongside. A year ago, none of them were there.

Foot Traffic Along the Corridor

The stretch of Foothill between the Route 66 Trailhead and Victoria Gardens brings together several sources of foot traffic. The trail itself brings a steady flow of walkers, runners, and cyclists, documented in trail reviews as a near-constant presence on any given afternoon. The Trailhead park draws a separate crowd of Route 66 heritage travelers who stop specifically because of the historic marker and the road's Mother Road status. And a few more blocks east, Victoria Gardens pulls in shoppers who are already budgeting time for a meal nearby.

A grocery store, a taqueria, and a steakhouse are located along this corridor, alongside three sources of foot traffic. The trail, the Trailhead park, and Victoria Gardens draw people for different reasons. For someone who already lives here and uses the trail on a normal Saturday, that means the options near your usual route are catching up to the amount of foot traffic that route has always carried.

Mapping Your Next Walk

If you have not adjusted your usual loop since last year, here is what changes in practice. Starting a walk or ride from the Route 66 Trailhead and heading east, you now pass Vallarta's seafood counter within the first half mile, close enough to grab something on the way back rather than planning a separate trip. A few blocks further, check whether Wagyu Factory or Primecut Taqueria is open before you commit to the detour. Continue east and Fogo de Chão sits near the far end of this stretch, more of a destination stop than a mid-walk snack given the sit-down format.

Heading the other direction from the Trailhead, toward Archibald Avenue, is where Kings Brewing's current Rancho Cucamonga address puts it back into range for anyone whose old habit was to end a ride with a beer. It is not the same building, and it is not the same block, but it is close enough to work into the same kind of loop.

None of this requires a car. The trail's whole appeal has always been that it connects these points without one, and for the first time in a while, there are enough new points to actually connect.

A Corridor Worth Walking Twice

The Pacific Electric Trail has run through this part of Rancho Cucamonga since it was reborn from the old Pacific Electric Railway's San Bernardino Line, and the appeal has never been complicated: a flat, paved path that gets you from one part of the city to another without a car, with enough shade and rest stops to make the distance comfortable. What changed this year is not the trail. It is what waits at the edges of it.

If your usual route has felt a little stale, this is the season to walk it again with fresh eyes on the Foothill side streets instead of just the trail markers. New stops are still settling in, old ones have shifted rather than vanished, and the map you had last year is already out of date.

Francis Deguzman lives and works in this part of the Inland Empire, and pays attention to these shifts because they are part of daily life here, not just data points. If you ever want to talk about what is changing in Rancho Cucamonga, whether it is a new restaurant on Foothill or a question about the local market, Le Mans Real Estate is a call away. Let's Connect.