The corner of Montana and 10th did not have a burger window a year ago. It had Go Get Em Tiger coffee. Two blocks up, 1510 Montana was not a gelato counter. On the Promenade, the address that just handed out chicken fingers to a line stretching from the night before was, until recently, one more vacancy in a downtown the city has spent two years trying to refill.
None of these openings are accidents. Santa Monica's City Council formally adopted a "Realignment Plan" in late 2025, and 2026 is the year its specific addresses start filling in. For anyone who already lives here, the useful question is not what is new. It is which blocks are being rewritten, and by whom.
The block-by-block ledger
The clearest way to see the shift is to look at what replaced what. A handful of the openings and relocations announced or executed in the first half of 2026:
| Address | What opened | What was there |
|---|---|---|
| 930 Montana Ave. | The Win~Dow, smashburger walk-up | Go Get Em Tiger coffee |
| 1510 Montana Ave. | Bacio di Latte, second Santa Monica location | Vacancy next to Sogno Toscano |
| 2441 Main St. | La Diperie, dipped ice cream and donuts | Holey Grail Donuts |
| 1231 Wilshire Blvd. | DOL Coffee House, Vietnamese coffee and boba | Vacant corner |
| 1260 15th St. | Sonia's Café | Retail space |
| 2828 Santa Monica Blvd. | Holy Basil Santa Monica | Prior tenant |
| Third Street Promenade | Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers | Vacancy |
| Colorado Center | Bower Santa Monica, ~6,500 sf | Ground-floor office program |
A few things are worth pointing out before this reads like a list.
The Win~Dow at 930 Montana is the brand's seventh location, following Venice, The Grove, Hollywood, Long Beach, Silver Lake, and Santa Barbara, and co-owner Paul Hibler told What Now Los Angeles the Montana Avenue location was slated to open in mid-March. It took over a space previously occupied by Go Get Em Tiger, seats 50, was designed by the Klein Agency, and features murals by Los Angeles artist KC Haxton. If you have walked past on a Saturday and wondered why the sidewalk queue rounds the corner, that is why.
The Promenade opening a few blocks down is a different signal. Raising Cane's cut the ribbon with Mayor Caroline Torosis on hand, who called the arrival a milestone moment for a downtown working to rebuild commercial momentum. The store carries disco ball surfboards on the ceiling crafted by a local artisan and murals drawing from the chain's origins, which is more effort at localization than most national chains bother with on the Promenade. Read it as a template rather than a one-off.
The Main Street swap deserves a note. La Diperie is moving into 2441 Main after Holey Grail Donuts closed, and the Montreal-founded chain specializes in dipped ice cream, cakes, donuts and cookies with more than 20 toppings, with over 65 locations across Canada and Florida. The Santa Monica outpost will mark the brand's first West Coast location. Main Street has historically resisted chain footprints. This one arrived under a dessert-shop signage that reads independent.
On the coffee side, Sonia's Café is working to open at 1260 15th St. at the corner of Arizona Avenue, while the vacant corner at 1231 Wilshire will host Vietnamese coffee specialists DOL Coffee House, which currently operates in Gardena and also serves boba and desserts. Both are quieter than the Promenade story, and both matter more if your commute crosses Wilshire.
Two full-service restaurants moved onto Santa Monica Boulevard this spring. Jade Rabbit is a fast-casual Chinese American restaurant from Bryant Ng and Kim Luu-Ng, the couple behind the now-closed Cassia, offering a build-your-own combo meal positioned as a health-conscious upgrade from Sweetgreen and Panda Express, with combos starting at $13 with upgrades for premium proteins. Down the boulevard at 2828, Holy Basil Santa Monica arrived as Wedchayan "Deau" Arpapornnopparat and Tongkamal "Joy" Yuon's Westside expansion of their DTLA window, dishing out Thai street food with hyper-local ingredients. Two former DTLA operators on the same street inside twelve months is not coincidence.
The Colorado Center pivot
The most underdiscussed line item is not a restaurant. It is a strategy shift at a fifteen-acre office campus.
A surf-inspired, all-day restaurant and community hub, Bower Santa Monica, is opening this summer at Colorado Center, spanning approximately 6,500 square feet, and will offer food, beverage, and wellness programming at the 15-acre office campus. BXP 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.
The interesting fact is that BXP, one of the country's largest office landlords, is paying an independent LA restaurateur to make an office campus feel like a neighborhood. That is a wager about who is going to be walking through Colorado Center in 2027, and it is being placed by someone with a balance sheet.
The Pier is being used as civic infrastructure again
The second thread running through 2026 is that the Pier has been re-cast as the city's front door for a three-year run of global events.
The FIFA World Cup comes to Los Angeles in summer 2026, followed by the 2027 Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium, and in 2028 the Olympic and Paralympic Games throughout the region. The City Council approved partnering with private entities on five major events, including the Michelob ULTRA Pitchside Club on Santa Monica Pier timed to the World Cup kickoff and a large-scale music festival adjacent to the Pier and along the sand produced by Goldenvoice in fall 2026.
Goldenvoice is the Coachella producer. The inaugural festival concept envisions a single-day event with an estimated capacity of 30,000 to 35,000 attendees, with 12 to 15 musical artists and curated food and beverage, and the concert would return in fall 2027 and fall 2028 as an annual event. The city is calling it the Ocean Way Festival. If you live west of Lincoln, this is a September traffic pattern to know about now, not the week of.
Mayor Torosis framed the logic in one sentence:
"We are ushering in Santa Monica's Renaissance by delivering results, revitalizing our core, and setting the city up for its next chapter."
Whether or not the branding lands, the sequencing is real. Every ribbon cutting downtown this year is being scheduled against a global broadcast window.
A locals' calendar for what is left of summer
The city has published enough about the season to plan a month around it without guessing. The pieces worth putting on a calendar:
- Pier 360 Beach Festival. Returns June 27 and 28 with ocean sports competitions, live music, food, drinks, games, and beachside activities. Free.
- Michelob ULTRA Pitchside Club. The Official Beer Sponsor of the 2026 FIFA World Cup will bring its Pitchside Club fan experience to the Santa Monica Pier in June 2026.
- Fourth of July. The annual Fourth of July Parade returns to Main Street, along with a new event produced by Revel Republic, and the day will also mark America's 250th birthday and the 100th anniversary of Route 66. The Pier is the symbolic western terminus of Route 66, and the centennial is being celebrated all year long with free events across the city.
- State of the City. Returns July 23 at Ocean Park Branch Library and Main Street, with live entertainment, kids' activities, food, drinks, and community programming.
- Ocean Way Festival. Goldenvoice is expected to bring a two-day ticketed music festival to the beach in September, with additional free music, culture, and community events to be announced ahead of the festival.
- Locals' Night on the Pier. Every third Thursday from September to May, the Pier hosts a free community night with local DJs, live music, art, kids activities, a classic car show, and a party feel. The September edition is the one to plan around after the Ocean Way crowd clears.
The Santa Monica International Jazz Festival, featuring Kamasi Washington, opened the season in May. Its inaugural year confirms the pattern: the calendar is now front-loaded and beach-facing.
One quiet upgrade worth knowing
Away from the Pier, one hotel repositioned itself in a way that changes what is available for a private event.
Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica completed a $16 million renovation that updated all 315 guestrooms with a coastal palette and introduced more than 15,000 square feet of meeting and event space. The centerpiece is the 4,526-square-foot Delfina Ballroom, Santa Monica's only rooftop ballroom overlooking the Pacific Ocean, accommodating 400 guests. The property also revamped Coastal Harvest Bar & Kitchen and added the Sandbox game room and enhanced public spaces.
For anyone who has spent a decade hosting rehearsal dinners at the same three ocean-view rooms in town, the ballroom is genuinely a new option.
The takeaway for someone who already lives here
Read the map together and a pattern shows up. The Third Street Promenade is being repopulated by chains willing to commission local art. Montana and Main are absorbing established LA and out-of-region operators. Colorado Center is being retrofitted with a neighborhood-scale food and wellness anchor by its office landlord. The Pier has become the staging ground for the region's global-event calendar through 2028. What is happening this year on these specific blocks is what the city will feel like for the next three summers.
The corners will keep moving. If you would like a considered read on how any of it affects a specific address or block, Gary Glass Estates is available for a private conversation. Request a private showing or a discreet neighborhood consultation at your convenience.
