The River

In Rancho Mirage im Coachella Valley, zwischen Cathedral City und Palm Desert, befindet sich das Center «The River». Es ist relativ einfach über den Highway 111 zu erreichen.
Anhand der Außenanlage konnte man erkennen, dass der Name nicht zufällig gewählt wurde. Hier wurde ein künstlicher See und Flusslauf angelegt. Leider waren die Wasserspiele bei unserer Ankunft nicht in Betrieb.
Neben dem eigentlichen Einkaufszentrum gibt es hier noch ein Kino und einige nette Restaurants. Das PF Changs China Bistro Machte von außen einen sehr einladenden Eindruck. Darüber hinaus gibt es neben vielen anderen Restaurants hier auch noch eine Cheesecake Factory, Five Guys Burgers and Fries und Fleming´s Prime Steakhouse mit einer großen Auswahl von Premium-​Steaks.
Wer hier zum Einkaufen hinfährt, wie wir, wird bitter enttäuscht. Außer einem großen Forever 21 gibt es hier keine nennenswerten Geschäfte, die das Shoppingherz höher schlagen lassen. Hier ist eher der Fokus auf das leibliche Wohl und dem Kino gerichtet.
Die Anlage ist wirklich sehr liebevoll gestaltet und einen Besuch wert. Allerdings nur, wenn man hier essen möchte.

This is surely the dirt mall of Rancho Mirage.
The stores are half-​empty and is losing tenants quickly.
The restaurant selection is decent, albeit are all giant chain restaurants, but if you have no need to go here if don’t need to eat at a chain restaurant or hobnobbing with tourists from the Omni Rancho Las Palmas Hotel across the street from it.
Friends have told me this was supposed to be ‘downtown Rancho Mirage’ but how is it a downtown area when it’s really a shopping plaza?
A downtown area has streets with little shops, like downtown Palm Springs, not a shopping plaza full of giant chain restaurants & a multiplex, which is the River.
The River is more like a suburban shopping center and who wouldve thought to make it open air shopping center in the desert?!
Interestingly enough, the real downtown Rancho Mirage is where the Elephant Car Wash is, since its all smaller shops down around there.
Sadly, its slowly becoming a tourist trap for the Omni Rancho Las Palmas Hotel next to it.

The River is one of my favorite places in the desert. I love coming here for dinner because they have a couple of my favorite restaurants, a nice variety of shops, dessert choices, and great selection of movies.
This is definitely worth a visit if you are in the valley!

Looks nice, but not much to do except eat. We left after grabbing Starbucks and taking a quick walk through.

Decent amount of shops and restaurants. Nothing special though.

still no chargers for electric cars!

It’s a pretty little mall with an awesome «river». But most shops are «elitist» and too expensive. It is also quite small. The theater is great as well as several of the restaurants. Would be nice to have some outdoor entertainment…

My family and I stopped by in our downtime and I was sorely disappointed. The river looks unkempt and was rather disgusting to look at. I understand though, we are in the middle of a drought. There weren’t too many shops around and we left pretty soon after we arrived. Many of the restaurants here look pretty good and I’m sure if you stop by for dinner, it’ll be a much nicer place.

Fun nights out under the stars, music, dinner, movie & a date!
Only negative is fighting the junior high kids crowding the outside seating area.

Great place to walk around outside while Taking in the beautiful mountain views & listening to the «river» (man-​made streams with water running over smooth River Rock). Fun place for shopping, window shopping, dining, outdoor performances, going to the movies, getting your Java on… haha

Good place to hang out and it’s banging at night especially during the summer nights.

Looks nice where Cheesecake Factory sits in the water. Giving it a two for whoever designed and thought an outdoor mall in the middle of the desert was cool. Idiots… Build an indoor mall u will have more success vs half the tenants gone since this place is only good for nighttime or winter.

Nice place to go

Great design with a lot of shoppes, sorry not to many good ones. best thing is the movie theater, Century.

Very pretty place to hang out. There’s a movie theater, some shopping and many restaurants. PF Chang, Cheesecake Factory, Five Guys, Ben and Jerry’s, Starbucks, michael’s pizZa to name a few. Lots of water that is very beautiful to take pictures. Romantic.

Parking stinks. But once you find a spot, leave it for 42 days. It’s a little oasis in the dessert. A little «river», with chain restaurants (Cheesecake Factory, Yardhouse, Fleming’s, Acqua Pazza, Babe’s Bar-​B-​Que & Brewery, PF Chang’s, Baja Fresh, Five Guys, Ben & Jerry’s, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, and several others. But wait, that’s not all you get.
A spankin’ nice movie theater (Cinemark), Forever 21 (yeah, and I they have men’s clothes, too), Bath & Body Works, MAC Cosmetics, and others.
Overall, it’s small and not enough to really amuse yourself to walk around, but for dinner and a movie, it’s great.

I used to frequent this area in high school especially since it opened around that time and was another place us high school kids could hang out besides the PD Mall. The movie theatre is probably one of the nicest ones in the area besides Mary Pickford. Used to always go to Borders, but just saw that it became a Forever 21. The opening of Cheesecake Factory awhile back made this place that much busier and increased the amount of visitors due to it popularity. Definitely a cool place to bring friends from out of town just so they can see the layout of the place and grab some food and/​or watch a movie.