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Abstract Locally enhanced biological production and increased carbon export are persistent features at oceanic density fronts. Studies often assume biological properties are uniform along fronts or hypothesize that along‐ and across‐front gradients reflect physical‐biological processes occurring in the front. However, the residence times of waters in fronts are often shorter than biological response times. Thus, an alternate—often untested—hypothesis is that observed biological patchiness originates upstream of a front. To test these two hypotheses, we explore an eddy‐associated front in the California Current System sampled during two surveys, separated by 3 weeks. Patches of high phytoplankton biomass were found at the northern ends of both surveys, and phytoplankton biomass decreased along the front. While these patches occurred in similar locations, it was unclear whether the same patch was sampled twice, or whether the two patches were different. Using an advection‐reaction framework combined with field and satellite data, we found that variations in along‐front gradients in dissolved oxygen, particle biovolume, and salinity support the conclusion that the two phytoplankton patches were different. They were only coincidentally sampled in similar locations. Backward‐ and forward‐in‐time tracking of water parcels showed that these phytoplankton patches had distinct origins, associated with specific, strong coastal upwelling pulses upstream of the front. Phytoplankton grew in these recently upwelled waters as they advected into and along the frontal system. By considering both local and upstream physical‐biological forcings, this approach enables better characterizations of critical physical and biogeochemical processes that occur at fronts across spatial and temporal scales.