If you live here, you already know summer arrives twice. There is the tourist summer of Pier photos and rented bikes, and then there is the resident summer of which coffee shop finally opened, which block is closed on Saturday, and where to park when the Promenade is full. This year the two summers are running closer together than usual, and the reason is worth understanding before you plan your next Saturday.
Santa Monica has spent the first half of 2026 quietly reprogramming its commercial core around a single anchor event, the FIFA World Cup, and the ripple effects are showing up on Montana Avenue, Main Street, and Wilshire Boulevard as new storefronts and dated street closures. What follows is a resident's map of the openings and the calendar, organized by where you actually walk.
The New Storefronts, By Street
The clearest pattern in this year's openings is geographic. Restaurants are clustering along three corridors that already carry weekend foot traffic, which means the practical question for locals is less "what's new" and more "what changed within a five-block radius of my usual route."
Montana Avenue. The strip picked up two arrivals this spring. The Win-Dow opened at 930 Montana Ave., taking over the space previously occupied by Go Get Em Tiger coffee shop, with a 50-seat room designed by the Klein Agency and murals by Los Angeles artist KC Haxton. A few blocks north, a second Santa Monica location of Italian gelato brand Bacio di Latte is coming to 1510 Montana Ave., next to Italian market Sogno Toscano. For anyone who walked Montana pre-2024, the Go Get Em Tiger swap is the more telling of the two. A third-wave coffee address turning into a smashburger window signals what Montana's landlords are underwriting right now.
Third Street Promenade and Downtown. Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers cut the ribbon on the Third Street Promenade in June, with Mayor Caroline Torosis on hand, calling the arrival of the Louisiana-based chain a milestone moment for a downtown that has been working to rebuild commercial momentum. Whether you consider a chicken finger chain a milestone is a matter of taste, but the framing is the story: the city is treating Downtown occupancy as a public goal, not a private one. More is coming. Gott's, the retro-inspired diner from the Bay Area, will open a Downtown Santa Monica location later this summer, and Downtown will also gain Sonia's Café at 1260 15th St. at the corner of Arizona Avenue.
Wilshire Boulevard. The vacant corner building at 1231 Wilshire Blvd. will soon host Vietnamese coffee specialists DOL Coffee House, which currently has a location in Gardena where it also serves boba and desserts. A vacant Wilshire corner filling with a specialty coffee operator rather than another bank branch is a small but real reversal of the storefront pattern that dominated 2023 and 2024.
Main Street and Ocean Park. The closure of Holey Grail Donuts at 2441 Main St. has made way for La Diperie, a chain founded in Montreal in 2014 that specializes in dipped ice cream, cakes, donuts, and cookies with more than 20 toppings; with more than 65 locations across Canada and into Florida, the Santa Monica outpost would mark the brand's first West Coast location.
Mid-City / Colorado Center. The most ambitious project on the list is not on a retail street at all. Bower Santa Monica, an all-day restaurant and community hub spanning approximately 6,500 square feet, is set to open this summer at the 15-acre Colorado Center office campus, announced April 15 by BXP alongside restaurateur Dave Harper and New School Hospitality; Harper, the founding partner of Amigo Roasters and the operator behind Bondi Harvest, El Chucho, Palmys, and Likeminded Wellness Club, drew the name from Fairy Bower, a break in the Cabbage Tree Bay of Manly Beach in Australia. A 6,500-square-foot food-and-wellness anchor built into an office campus is a bet on hybrid work stabilizing at a level that supports weekday lunch, weekend brunch, and evening programming from the same kitchen.
Santa Monica Boulevard. Holy Basil Santa Monica, the Westside expansion of Wedchayan "Deau" Arpapornnopparat and Tongkamal "Joy" Yuon's DTLA Thai street food operation, is now open, described as bright, busy, and boisterous, a love letter to Bangkok.
The Thesis, Stated Plainly
Read the openings side by side and the pattern is clear. Santa Monica is being programmed this summer the way a stadium district gets programmed. New food operators are landing on the corridors that connect residential neighborhoods to the Pier and the Promenade, and the city is layering a dense event calendar on top of those same corridors. For a resident, that means the summer's practical geography is different from last year's. The stretch between your house and the beach is going to be busier, later, and more often closed to cars.
The Calendar That Reshapes Your Weekends
Here is the sequence, in the order it hits your neighborhood.
May. The inaugural Santa Monica International Jazz Festival ran May 1 through May 9, a partnership between the City of Santa Monica, BroadStage, and SM Festivals, with a vision shaped by legendary musician Stanley Clarke and BroadStage to restore premier live music to the "City by the Sea," with performances staged at Third Street Promenade, Tongva Park, and BroadStage.
June. The month is the busiest single stretch on the summer calendar.
- The Michelob ULTRA Pitchside Club launches at the Santa Monica Pier on June 11, bringing watch parties and family-friendly events tied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup through July 19.
- Pride on the Promenade festival takes place on June 13, with additional Pride Month events at the Pier and Annenberg Community Beach House.
- Santa Monica's Juneteenth celebration expands this year with events June 19 at Miles Memorial Playhouse and Reed Park, followed by the 34th annual celebration at Virginia Avenue Park on June 20.
- Summer Soulstice takes over Main Street from noon to 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 20, a car-free celebration of music, community, and 100 years of Route 66.
- On June 21, the city launches Make Music Santa Monica, turning public spaces into free stages for music-making, performances, and community connection.
- The Pier 360 Beach Festival runs June 27 and 28 with ocean sports competitions, live music, food and drinks, and interactive games.
July. Santa Monica's State of the City event returns July 23, this year at Ocean Park Branch Library and Main Street, with live entertainment, kids' activities, food, drinks, and community programming.
Fall. The city's summer lineup continues into September, when Goldenvoice is expected to bring a two-day ticketed music festival to the beach, with additional free music, culture, and community events expected to be announced ahead of the festival.
Reading The Pattern
Two data points make the shift concrete. The Win-Dow arrival matters not because Santa Monica needed another burger, but because the Win-Dow just opened its seventh LA-area location in Santa Monica, which means there are now two very well-known but very different burger spots within a block of each other, with the original Father's Office a few steps away. Density like that on a single Montana block does not happen without operators betting on a step change in daytime and evening foot traffic.
The second data point is the hotel move. As part of its operational plan, Michelob ULTRA anticipates securing a full buy-out of the Viceroy Hotel for a limited period during the tournament, with the hotel serving as a lodging and production support hub for talent, partners, and operational staff. A full hotel buyout for a corporate activation is the kind of detail that shows up later as a Reddit thread about parking near Ocean Avenue. Worth knowing in advance.
For residents, the practical takeaways are simple. Main Street closes to cars on June 20 and again on October 17. Ocean Avenue and Downtown will run at Pitchside Club density from June 11 through July 19. The corridors that get quieter, at least by contrast, are the ones east of Lincoln, which is where a lot of the new coffee and casual food is landing anyway.
A Note For Homeowners
If you own here, the through-line is that the city is investing in the same corridors that shape your property's daily experience: the Promenade, the Pier, Main Street, Montana. Storefront occupancy, event programming, and hotel activity are the day-to-day inputs that make a Santa Monica address feel like a Santa Monica address. Watching which streets are getting the new anchors, and which ones are quietly getting the coffee shops, is the closest thing to a real-time read on where the neighborhood's weight is shifting.
If you are thinking about how any of this affects your next move, whether that is a sale, a purchase, or a relocation from another market, Vonsalé Realty Group is here to talk it through. Request a free consultation and home valuation, and we will build the conversation around your block, not a citywide average.
