Walk south on Coast Highway past Heisler Park this week and you'll notice something that wasn't true a year ago: almost none of the storefronts are dark anymore. For most of 2025, four of the most-watched addresses in town sat empty at the same time, long enough that locals stopped expecting them to reopen at all. Between March and July of this year, all four turned the lights back on. A fifth joined them. That alone would be a modest local story. What makes it worth your attention is the timing: this entire wave of new kitchens is hitting its stride in the exact weeks when Laguna's biggest annual crowd draws, the Sawdust Art Festival and the Festival of Arts, are packing up for the season. If you live here, the next two or three weeks are arguably the best stretch all year to actually experience what's new without fighting festival traffic to get a table.
Four Addresses, One Season
The Heisler Building at 400 S. Coast Highway had sat vacant since Skyloft and Bodega closed abruptly in January 2025, a shutdown that reportedly cost the town at least 180 jobs at its peak under the previous operator. It reopened June 29 as Noble Ace, a supper club built around Chef Magellan Moore, formerly of Mastro's Ocean Club, and co-founders Elizabeth and Tom Schreiber. The team runs deep for a first-year opening: Hillari Galindo came on as General Manager after stints at Mastro's Ocean Club and Red O in Newport Beach, and Danny Reyes returned as Assistant GM after starting his Laguna career at Odessa. The room is open Sunday through Thursday from 4:30 to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday until 11.
Two miles south, the old San Shi Go space on stilts at 858 S. Coast Highway spent nearly two years dark before Amorelia Cocina Artesanal soft-opened this spring. Owner Gloria Seretti, whose family has run a Mexican restaurant in Costa Mesa for decades, brought her son Daniel Paniagua in to lead the concept's first-ever expansion, a 185-seat Mexico City-focused dining room with a raw bar and a wine program built to match. The place has already had its viral moment: when the World Cup final aired in July, NBA Hall of Famer Ray Allen and Mark Cuban turned up to watch the match with friends.
Further south still, the Ti Amo building at 31727 Coast Highway sat empty for years before the team behind Dana Point's Truly Pizza claimed it, but not for pizza. That's going to 320 N. Coast Highway instead, in the former "3" restaurant space. South Laguna is getting Truly Bagels, a daytime counter-service concept run by Donna Baldwin, the same operator who opened the original Truly Pizza in Dana Point back in 2023 and is now expanding a third time into Venice by year's end.
And on South Pacific Coast Highway, Dizz's As Is closed for good on March 13 after more than 40 years under the Pitz family, who had run it since Marcel Pitz founded it in 1977. The building didn't sit empty long. Small's Smash Club, the second location for a concept founded by professional snowboarder Jordan Small after opening his first spot in San Clemente in 2025, took over the space, kept the ocean view and the existing liquor license, and opened on a Friday in June to a line that reportedly stretched through the weekend.
The Pattern Behind the Pattern
Look at those four openings side by side and a second detail stands out beyond the addresses. None of these operators are betting on Laguna cold. Every one of them already proved the concept somewhere nearby first. Truly Pizza tested itself in Dana Point for three years before expanding. Small's Smash Club opened in San Clemente in 2025 and used that as the model for its second location. Amorelia is a Costa Mesa restaurant family's first attempt at growth after decades in one location. Even Noble Ace's leadership team was assembled from Mastro's, Red O, and Odessa rather than built from scratch.
That's a different kind of confidence than a brand-new entrepreneur betting everything on a coastal address because the view is nice. It suggests operators are treating Laguna Beach as the next stop after they've already de-risked the concept somewhere else in South Orange County, which says something about how the regional restaurant economy actually works right now: proven ideas migrate toward the coast, not the other way around.
The Festival Calendar Is About to Flip
All of this is landing at an unusual moment on the town's calendar. The Sawdust Art Festival is marking its 60th anniversary this year, running from June 26 through September 6 in Laguna Canyon, and its food lineup gives you a preview of names you'll see again downtown. The Cove by Starfish is serving a churro bao bun that's become a festival favorite, AhbA is debuting as a concession with its elevated take on the American burger, and Taco Loco, led by Gonzo Rebollar, is doing what it's done for years. Laguna Beach residents get into Sawdust free on Thursday afternoons with valid ID, a detail worth using before the festival closes for the year.
Just up the road, the Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters run through September 3, closing out this year's production, and Bluebird Park's free Sunday evening concert series has already cycled through its summer lineup, including a Prince tribute act, singer Lola Kristine, indie surf group Spencer the Gardner, an Amy Winehouse tribute, and roots band Rose's Pawn Shop by mid-August. Once Labor Day passes, both festivals close their gates for the year and the free concert series goes quiet until next July.
That's the collision worth noticing. The town's restaurant reopening wave and its festival season are moving in opposite directions at the same time. The kitchens are just getting their footing while the crowds that fill the canyon all summer are about to disperse.
What That Means for the Next Few Weeks
If you've been putting off trying the new places because parking near Coast Highway during festival season is its own project, this is the window. Bar ízi, a small plates concept from owner Sam Rabon taking over the old Evan's Gourmet space at Glenneyre and Thalia, a building locals will also remember as Cafe Zoolu and ROUX Creole in earlier years, is targeting a debut in the final days of August or the first weeks of September. That address has its own quiet history worth knowing: Chef Evan Lewis, who grew up in Laguna Beach, still runs a catering operation and a counter spot inside Sawdust, but closed her evening restaurant at that Thalia and Glenneyre location in August 2025 after struggling to bring in dinner traffic. Bar ízi is stepping into a space with real name recognition and a documented reason the last tenant didn't make it work at night.
Down at 248 S. Coast Highway, Nulu Poke Tea & Boba has filled the space next to Better Buzz Coffee that Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory occupied since 1984, a 40-year run that quietly ended this year. It's a smaller story than a supper club opening in a landmark building, but it's the kind of change a daily walker notices before anyone writes it down.
Put together, the next few weeks are an unusually good stretch to actually use this town the way it's meant to be used before autumn changes the rhythm again. Grab a Thursday afternoon at Sawdust while it's still free for residents. Catch the Pageant before it closes September 3. Try Noble Ace on a weeknight when the room isn't full of festival tourists, or grab a bagel from Truly Bagels on your way to Aliso Beach. The new restaurant map and the old festival calendar won't overlap like this again until next summer.
If you're weighing a move within South Orange County and want a read on how a neighborhood's day-to-day texture holds up against what you see on a listing sheet, Colin Farris spends his time exactly here, in the details that don't show up in a search filter. Let's Connect when you're ready to talk about what living in a place like this actually feels like.
