At 25, The River Has Become Rancho Mirage's Night-Out Center

The River at Rancho Mirage turned 25 this year. In October the Coachella Valley Independent counted 19 vacancies on its first floor and only four retail businesses still open. Even so, the reporter's own visit ended in a busy Yard House after a movie. The River at 71800 Highway 111 lost its role as a shopping center some time ago. What it kept is the role of the place where an evening happens: a film, a big dinner, a game, an event in the amphitheater. This Thursday, Nov. 19, Rancho Mirage's City Council takes up a corridor plan that describes The River in almost exactly those terms.

The Shops Thinned Out Over Fifteen Years

The decline was slow, and it started early. The Independent's history traces the first major loss to around 2011, when Borders closed. The center was sold in 2014 to the company now known as Cheer Land The River, which has been working to bring in tenants ever since and at one point proposed a hotel for the site.

The restaurant side has changed hands more often than it has gone dark. Acqua California Bistro closed in 2014, came back in 2017 and closed again in 2022. Dave & Buster's took over that location in 2023. A year later Babe's Bar-B-Que & Brewery left for Indio after 22 years at The River, and Fleming's Prime Steakhouse closed in 2020 after two decades. Both of those buildings are still empty. Among the smaller storefronts, the former Five Guys, Chakaa Tea Shoppe and Bath & Body Works spaces now hold artwork.

Retail is the category that has emptied, and the count shows it clearly. Of all the businesses still operating on the ground floor, the Independent counted just four that sell goods. The rest are restaurants or businesses selling services and experiences.

What Holds the Center Up After Dark

The anchor is the Cinemark Century. The Independent calls the theater the center's core anchor, the reason to show up for a new release and stay for a meal before or after. Around it sit the national restaurants that have stayed through every round of turnover: The Cheesecake Factory, Yard House, P.F. Chang's, Ben & Jerry's and Dave & Buster's.

Upstairs is Escape Games at the River, which has been there for a decade. Its rooms put teams inside a medieval dungeon, an ancient Egyptian tomb or the 1980s, and the business has done well enough to open a second location in La Quinta. Owner Charlie Sundahl explained to the Coachella Valley Independent why the empty storefronts haven't hurt him:

"The foot traffic is good at The River. The shops have dwindled in the last five years. There have been some businesses that come and have not stayed for very long. The movie theater and the big staple restaurants have been good for us. I would like the shops to fill back up, but it has not had an effect on our business."

A business selling an experience can do well next to vacant retail as long as the theater and the large dining rooms keep bringing people in at night. Escape Games' pricing page lists $42 per player, with rooms open Monday through Friday from 1:30 to 9 p.m. and on weekends from 11:45 a.m. to 9:15 p.m.

Daytime traffic at The River is lighter. The most recent dated opening is Cheers Coffee, which NBC Palm Springs reported opened on Aug. 1, 2025, and which is listed in the center's restaurant directory.

The Empty Windows Became a Gallery

Many of the vacant storefronts now hold the Window Walk Gallery, which the Independent describes as "a semi-permanent pop-up installation." The Desert Sun identifies the organizer as the Riverside County Desert Behavioral Health Advisory Board. The current work comes from local artists living with mental health diagnoses and from artists who support mental health awareness.

The gallery belongs in the same story as the theater and the restaurants. A walk past the windows adds something to the trip from parking lot to dinner reservation without anyone needing a store to sign a lease. It works best on foot, during the same evening hours that keep the rest of the center going.

A Center Built Around Events

The outdoor amphitheater, between P.F. Chang's and The Cheesecake Factory, is the other reason The River fills up. In October it hosted the All Star Jam, a free classic rock and blues night on Sundays from 6 to 9 p.m., with an open mic for local musicians and free parking, as the Desert Sun listed it. November opened with Mikey Reyes on Nov. 7, and the Glow and Grow Market brought women makers and local vendors in on Saturday evening, Nov. 14.

The next dated event at the center is the Cruise-In Car Show on Saturday morning, Dec. 5. The Palm Springs Cruisin' Association holds its first-Saturday car show at The River from October through April, and its calendar lists the December edition as a CVRM Toy and Non-Perishable Food Drive. Palm Springs Life lists live music and food. Like a Sunday jam session or a Saturday film, a car show brings people to the center for something other than shopping.

The City's Plan Makes That Role Official

The City of Rancho Mirage's public hearing notice puts the Highway 111 Specific Plan Update before City Council on Nov. 19 at 1 p.m. The Planning Commission recommended approval on Oct. 22. The plan would repeal and replace the separate East and West Highway 111 plans. It would set updated land-use designations for 12 planning areas across about 472 acres, from the Whitewater River to the foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains, and it is meant to support "a diverse mix of retail, restaurant, hotel, office, residential, and cultural uses along the corridor."

According to GPS Business Insider's walkthrough of the plan, it would reinforce The River "as a shopping, dining and entertainment destination," with the emphasis on reinvestment, pedestrian circulation and places for people to gather. The words that matter for The River are gathering and circulation, and they describe what already works there: people walking from a theater to a restaurant, past a gallery, to an amphitheater show. Across the highway, the same plan's goals for Rancho Las Palmas Shopping Center are different. They focus on tenant mix, visibility, shade, landscaping and parking, so that center keeps its neighborhood-serving role.

The plan's numbers describe capacity, not construction. Across the whole corridor it identifies room for 862 more homes and about 895,000 more square feet of commercial space. GPS Business Insider notes that those figures are estimates of what the rules would allow, not approved projects or a forecast.

The Next Openings Are Set for Spring 2027

Two new dining destinations are coming to Rancho Mirage, and both are scheduled for the spring. Cotino's public town center is now expected to open to the public in spring 2027. Announced tenants include Mila's Kitchen, Asada Cantina + Kitchen, SottoSopra from the SottoVoce Cafe team, La Dolce Piccola Gelateria and a Mojave Flea Trading Post, and Cotino's own site says its renderings are subject to change. On Highway 111, The Capital Grille is going into the former Roy's at 71959 Highway 111. A company spokesperson told GPS Business Insider in September that the restaurant is expected to open by spring 2027.

So for the season ahead, The River is the only one of these Rancho Mirage destinations already set up for an evening out. It has a first-run theater, several large restaurants, an escape room, an amphitheater and a block of storefronts showing local art.

Rancho Mirage's corridor plans shape which properties along Highway 111 can change and how. If you live or own near The River and want to talk through what the Nov. 19 hearing could mean for the blocks around you, Homes in the Desert is happy to walk through it with you. Schedule a Free Consultation with Terry or Deborah.