The barricades came down on July 20. By Monday morning, Ocean Avenue was a street again, the LED screens were gone from the 1300 block of the Promenade, and the Pier had returned to its baseline hum of carousel music and bike bells. If you live here, you know the feeling: the city exhales, the tourists thin out by half, and August becomes the first honest month to look around and see what actually changed.
Plenty did. The story of Santa Monica this summer is not the six weeks of soccer. It is the quieter question of which openings, renovations, and calendar fixtures used the World Cup as cover to plant themselves permanently. August is when a resident can finally read that map.
The tell isn't COAST. It's what opened during it.
The COAST 2026 open-streets festival on Sunday, July 19 took over more than a mile of downtown, including Ocean, Colorado, and Arizona avenues, Third Street Promenade, and the Santa Monica Pier, funded by a Metro grant and reviving an event that had been paused since the pandemic. It was the finale of six weeks of programming from June 11 through July 19 that merged sport, music, wellness, art, mobility, and community across the Promenade, Tongva Park, the Pier, and downtown. All good. All ephemeral.
What sits underneath is more interesting. Three of Santa Monica's most talked-about openings this year quietly cut ribbons while the city was distracted:
- The Win~Dow at 930 Montana Ave. — The 50-seat restaurant took over the space previously occupied by Go Get Em Tiger, was designed by the Klein Agency, and features murals by Los Angeles artist KC Haxton. It is the brand's seventh location.
- Raising Cane's on Third Street Promenade — Two openings in as many days added more than 100 jobs, with Mayor Caroline Torosis on hand calling it a milestone for a downtown working to rebuild commercial momentum.
- Khan Saab Desi Craft Kitchen at 115 Santa Monica Blvd. — The Michelin Bib Gourmand–recognized restaurant from Chef Imran Ali Mookhi held its grand opening July 16, showcasing elevated Pakistani and Indian cuisine.
Then add Holy Basil Santa Monica at 2828 Santa Monica Blvd., a Westside expansion of the famous DTLA window from Wedchayan "Deau" Arpapornnopparat and Tongkamal "Joy" Yuon with communal tables and an open kitchen where wok flames fly high every few minutes. And Jade Rabbit, a fast-casual Chinese American restaurant from Bryant Ng and Kim Luu-Ng, the couple behind the now-closed Cassia, offering a well-composed, health-conscious build-your-own combo bowl.
Four of those five sit on corridors — Montana, Santa Monica Boulevard, the Promenade — that a resident walks weekly. That is the actual news of the summer.
The calendar isn't empty. It's just quieter.
The World Cup calendar was designed for a global audience. August's is designed for you.
| Date | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 4 | National Night Out | Citywide |
| Aug 8 | SaMo Oceanfront Arts Festival | Oceanfront |
| Saturdays through Oct 17 | Wellness & Waves | Santa Monica Pier |
| Sept 19 | A Pierfect Benefit (S.S. Rex revival) | Merry-Go-Round Building |
Wellness & Waves invites residents to an easy-breezy group run from 8–9 a.m. followed by yoga or pilates from 9–10 a.m. overlooking the ocean, which is arguably the most Santa Monica sentence ever written. The S.S. Rex — the infamous 1930s gambling ship that once anchored just off the pier — returns this September, recreated inside the historic Merry-Go-Round building for a second annual benefit gala.
If you skipped the tournament crowds, August 8's SaMo Oceanfront Arts Festival is the recovery weekend. If you skipped everything, Circle Bar is back: Main Street's most (in)famous dive reopened after a three-year closure thanks to the owners of Hinano Cafe, keeping the nearly 80-year-old signage and namesake round bar intact, with a larger dance floor, a refreshed drink menu, and daily "Power Hours" from 6–7pm with $5 wine and discounted cocktails.
The Colorado Center bet
The most consequential opening of the year is one that hasn't happened yet.
A surf-inspired, all-day restaurant and community hub is set to open this summer at Colorado Center: Bower Santa Monica, spanning approximately 6,500 square feet, offering food and beverage, health and wellness programming, and "socialization rituals" at the 15-acre office campus. BXP, the largest publicly traded developer, owner and manager of premier workplaces in the United States, announced the concept April 15 alongside restaurateur Dave Harper and New School Hospitality. Harper is the founding partner of Amigo Roasters and the restaurateur behind Bondi Harvest, El Chucho, Palmys and Likeminded Wellness Club, and named Bower after Fairy Bower, a break in the Cabbage Tree Bay of Manly Beach in Australia.
For a resident, that is a signal. A 6,500-square-foot amenity concept anchored to an office campus is not a bet on tourists. It is a bet on the return of daytime population to the Santa Monica–Bundy corridor. Add Gott's, the retro-inspired diner from the Bay Area, opening in Downtown Santa Monica later this summer, and the Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica's $16 million renovation of 315 guestrooms and the 4,526-square-foot Delfina Ballroom, Santa Monica's only rooftop ballroom overlooking the Pacific, and you have three separate operators putting eight-figure capital into Santa Monica in a single calendar year.
That is what the World Cup was actually good for: giving cover to decisions that were already made.
A Montana-to-Main walk that reads the new map
If you want to see all of the above in a single Saturday, here is a walk that only makes sense as of August 2026:
- Start on Montana Avenue with a bagel at Pop's, which relocated a few miles west from Brentwood. Coffee at Menotti's West LA outpost, equipped with a vintage La Marzocco machine for spot-on flat whites and americanos, plus specials like the West L'Orange with espresso, orange cordial, pistachio milk, and chocolate shavings.
- Walk east to 1510 Montana Ave. and note the space next to Sogno Toscano where a second Santa Monica location of Italian gelato brand Bacio di Latte is coming. Not open yet. That is the point of a walk in August.
- Detour to 910 Montana for a scoop at Rori's Artisanal Creamery, which The Infatuation's "Best Ice Cream In LA" called out for scoops "so crammed with chunky mix-ins that they're almost miniature sundaes."
- Down to 930 Montana to see The Win~Dow's murals in daylight.
- Cut south to Wilshire and 1231 to look at the vacant corner building where Vietnamese coffee specialists DOL Coffee House will soon open.
- End on Main Street at 2441 to see the former Holey Grail Donuts space, where La Diperie will be moving in — the Montreal-founded chain specializing in dipped ice cream, cakes, donuts and cookies with more than 65 locations across Canada and into Florida, with the Santa Monica outpost marking the brand's first West Coast location.
The whole route is about three miles. What it teaches you is that four of the six most-anticipated openings on the Westside right now are within walking distance of each other, and none of them are on the Promenade.
What resets in September
The new Ocean Way Festival, right on the beach by Coachella producers Goldenvoice, arrives this summer, and the run of major events continues all the way through the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028. The city's summer lineup continues into September, when Goldenvoice is expected to bring a two-day ticketed music festival to the beach.
Read that sequence carefully. World Cup in June and July. Ocean Way Festival in September. LA28 as the horizon line. What Santa Monica is quietly building is a permanent event calendar that gives its ground-floor commercial tenants three predictable spikes a year. If you have been wondering why so many new leases signed in 2025 and 2026 despite the retail vacancy chatter, this is the answer. City leaders see this summer not as a one-time celebration, but as a defining moment in Santa Monica's evolution.
The takeaway for someone who already lives here
The version of this post you would find on a visitor site tells you where to eat and what to see. That is not what August is for. August is for noticing that the corner store on your block finally changed hands, that the "Coming Soon" paper has been in the window at 1231 Wilshire since spring, and that the restaurant you tried to book in July has tables on a Wednesday now.
The Win~Dow, Raising Cane's, Khan Saab, Holy Basil, and Jade Rabbit are open. Bower, Gott's, DOL, Sonia's Café, La Diperie, and the second Bacio di Latte are coming. Wellness & Waves runs on the Pier every Saturday until mid-October. The Delfina Ballroom is now the only rooftop ballroom over the Pacific. Circle Bar is pouring $5 wine again.
That is August. It is worth walking.
If you are thinking about what any of this means for a home you own or a block you are watching, Shelton Wilder reads Santa Monica's ground-floor changes for a living. Schedule a private consultation with Shelton Wilder to talk through what the next twelve months on your street are likely to look like.
