If you already live here, you don't need another list of restaurant openings. You need to know which corridor is quietly shifting, which counter has a line worth joining, and what's on the calendar that you'd otherwise miss. Look closely at what opened between June and August, and a pattern shows up. The most talked-about additions are not destination tasting menus. They are cafes, counter-service burger windows, dipped-ice-cream shops, and all-day office-campus rooms. Santa Monica's food map is filling in its middle: the everyday layer between a slice at home and an anniversary dinner.
Here is what opened, block by block, and how to think about the rhythm of the next few weekends.
Montana Avenue
Montana continues to behave like the city's northern living room, and this summer added two anchors worth planning around.
930 Montana Ave — The Win~Dow. The counter-service burger concept from Paul Hibler and Jeff Goodman took over the former Go Get Em Tiger coffee space and opened in June. The 50-seat restaurant was designed by the Klein Agency and features murals by Los Angeles artist KC Haxton. The draw is a smashburger that launched at $3.95 and has risen incrementally to around $4.50. That is the price story of the summer in one sentence.
1510 Montana Ave — Bacio di Latte. A second Santa Monica location of the Italian gelato brand is coming next to Italian market Sogno Toscano. If you already stop at Sogno Toscano for pantry runs, a scoop next door is going to become the path of least resistance.
Main Street and Ocean Park
Main Street is where the "casual replaces casual" pattern is clearest.
2441 Main St — La Diperie. The Montreal dipped-ice-cream chain is moving into the closed Holey Grail Donuts space; founded in Montreal in 2014, it specializes in dipped ice cream, cakes, donuts and cookies served with a selection of chocolate dips and more than 20 toppings, and with more than 65 locations across Canada and into Florida, the Santa Monica outpost would mark the brand's first West Coast location.
3117 Ocean Park Blvd — PonTu. A new Peruvian spot from Richie Lopez is opening in the previous home of the longstanding OP Cafe, with a menu that focuses on seasonal Peruvian cuisine with California coastal elements, including ceviches and tiraditos.
Main Street — Seline. The counterweight to the casual wave. Seline was awarded One Michelin Star at the 2026 Michelin Guide California awards ceremony, becoming Santa Monica's third Michelin Star restaurant; it is an elevated concept by Chef Dave Beran focused on encouraging a relationship between diners and the kitchen by removing barriers and implementing a service style that encourages conversation. The high end is still here. It is just no longer the story.
Ocean Avenue
1355 Ocean Ave — West Side Oyster Club. Greg and Yunnie Morena, the family behind The Albright on the Pier, opened this in late June. The new restaurant took over the former Blue Plate Oysterette space, which closed in early January after 16 years on Ocean Avenue, and carries its predecessor's legacy to act as a go-to spot for enjoying seafood by the beach without having to cater to a white tablecloth standard. The menu tantalizes with fish and chips, shrimp po'boys and lobster rolls, while a seafood tower and an array of caviar plates turn the head of even the most curated palette. For anyone who has spent 16 years telling out-of-town guests to walk to Blue Plate, the muscle memory address still works.
Downtown and the Third Street Promenade
The Promenade has been the biggest headline generator, with a coordinated push from the city to refill storefronts.
Third Street Promenade — Raising Cane's. Santa Monica welcomed two new restaurant openings in as many days in June, with Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers cutting the ribbon on the Third Street Promenade and The Win~Dow burger concept debuting at 930 Montana Ave., adding more than 100 jobs and fresh dining energy to a city actively working to revitalize its economic core, with Mayor Caroline Torosis on hand for the Raising Cane's opening. The Santa Monica outpost features disco ball surfboards on the ceiling crafted by a local artisan and murals drawing from the chain's origins.
Downtown — Gott's Roadside. Gott's will be opening two LA locations in 2026, the first at the Original Farmers Market, then one in Downtown Santa Monica later this summer; they are best known for burgers topped with things like green chile, griddled mushrooms, or kimchi, but the menu includes a full suite of classics like garlic fries, cobb salads, hot dogs, and shakes.
312 Santa Monica Blvd — Dragon Alley Coffee Shop, and 1260 15th St at Arizona Ave — Sonia's Café. Both are Downtown coffee arrivals announced alongside the Promenade food news.
Wilshire
1231 Wilshire Blvd — DOL Coffee House. Taking over the former Krispy Kreme space, the Vietnamese coffee café is celebrated for its signature Vietnamese coffees, specialty teas, boba drinks and desserts, including fan-favorite egg coffee and rich condensed milk creations, with a modern aesthetic and cozy all-day atmosphere.
Wilshire Blvd — Big Sur Grill. An elevated live-fire dining destination inspired by California's Central Coast, led by executive chef Philip Wojtowicz, the culinary force behind Big Sur Bakery and co-author of The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook.
Colorado Center
Bower Santa Monica. This is the opening that says the most about the direction of the neighborhood. A surf-inspired, all-day restaurant and community hub is set to open this summer at Colorado Center, spanning approximately 6,500 square feet and offering food and beverage, health and wellness programming and what its creators describe as "socialization rituals" at the 15-acre office campus, announced April 15 by BXP alongside restaurateur Dave Harper and New School Hospitality. Placing an all-day cafe inside an office campus is a bet that Santa Monica's midday foot traffic is finally coming back.
Hotel corner worth knowing
Hyatt Centric Delfina. Useful even if you never stay in a hotel in your own city. The hotel completed a $16 million renovation that updated all 315 guestrooms with a coastal color palette and introduced more than 15,000 square feet of meeting and event space, including the 4,526-square-foot Delfina Ballroom, Santa Monica's only rooftop ballroom overlooking the Pacific Ocean. That is a new venue for the school auction, the reunion, or the anniversary that until now would have driven you toward Beverly Hills.
The pattern under the openings
Six of the ten additions above are counter service, cafe, or all-day formats. One is a Michelin-starred tasting menu. The city has spent a decade being read from the outside as a destination for the top and the bottom of the price spectrum. The 2026 wave is filling in the everyday middle. A $4.50 smashburger on Montana, a Vietnamese egg coffee on Wilshire, a Peruvian tiradito in Ocean Park, and a surf-cafe on an office campus are all daily-frequency decisions, not once-a-year ones. That is the signal to plan around.
The other quiet shift is who is opening. The Morenas at West Side Oyster Club are on a family line that traces back to 1977. Yunnie's parents founded SM Pier Seafood in 1977, now known as pier-top restaurant The Albright. When a nearly 50-year local operator picks up a space that a 16-year operator vacated, that is continuity dressed as change.
Your August calendar, with dates
A short list of things happening in the next four weeks that are worth putting on the fridge.
- Tuesday, Aug 4, 5 to 8 PM — National Night Out 2026. The city's "Lights. Camera. Community." edition, per the city events calendar.
- Saturday, Aug 8, 11 AM — Art on Ocean Palisades Park Arts Festival, running along Palisades Park from California to Montana.
- Sunday, Aug 9, 12 to 5 PM — Makers Hive Market, Santa Monica Place Center Plaza, curated handmade goods, art, and vintage.
- Friday, Aug 14, 10 AM — Santa Monica Summer Market Days, Palisades Park.
- Saturday, Aug 15 — Ocean Way on the Santa Monica Pier Fishing Platform.
- Fridays through Aug 28 — After-hours movie nights at Cayton Children's Museum, Level 3 of Santa Monica Place, doors at 5:30 PM.
- Every Wednesday and Saturday — Downtown Farmers Market, the through-line under everything else.
Where this leaves your Tuesday night
If you have lived here more than five years, the honest change in your routine this summer is that a decent, cheap, walkable weeknight dinner is easier to find than it was in 2023. That has always been Santa Monica's structural gap. The map above closes it in three or four different corridors at once. Save the Michelin room for the birthday. Send the out-of-town cousin to the smashburger window. Take the coffee meeting to the Vietnamese café that used to be a doughnut shop. The neighborhood you live in is doing something new. It is worth eating your way through it.
When your household starts talking about what the next chapter looks like at home, whether that is a move up the coast, a downsize closer to Montana, or a second property, the Paul Kiger Group team is here to talk through it with the same care we would give our own block. Get your free home valuation to start the conversation.
