On a budget, weigh it — The Grove & Original Farmers Market isn't cheap for what it is.
Free entry; food/shopping vary
Two places sharing a block. The real reason to come is the adjacent Original Farmers Market, a 1934 maze of open-air food stalls and counters — Mexican, Cajun gumbo, fresh-cut doughnuts, old-school butchers — with genuine, slightly worn LA character. The Grove itself is a polished, unabashedly commercial open-air mall with a dancing fountain and a trolley; pleasant and easy, but the kind of upscale outdoor mall you've seen everywhere. Treat the Farmers Market as the destination and the mall as the low-effort add-on.