What's New To Eat, See, And Do In Laguna Beach This Summer

On March 13, the Pitz family closed Dizz's As Is after 48 years on South Coast Highway. Six weeks later, a smash burger counter run by a former pro snowboarder was preparing to open in the same building, keeping the bar, the liquor license, and the ocean view. That single address change tells you more about summer 2026 in Laguna than any festival poster will.

The town is not slowing down. It is recalibrating. Two of the canyon's biggest institutions are celebrating their 60th anniversaries at the same time, three marquee festivals overlap for eight straight weeks, and the restaurant map is quietly reorganizing around daytime, faster-turn concepts even as a few high-gloss full-service rooms return. If you live here, the practical question is not whether summer will be busy. It is where to eat before Pageant, what is worth the walk after Sawdust closes, and which addresses on Coast Highway are about to change hands.

The dining map is tilting toward daytime

The most visible new sign on Coast Highway belongs to Small's Smash Club, taking over 2794 S Pacific Coast Hwy from Dizz's. Founded by Jordan Small as a pandemic backyard operation and expanded to a San Clemente storefront in 2025, the Laguna location keeps the existing bar and adds beef tallow fries, onion rings, and ocean views to a room that used to serve rack of lamb and raspberry duck.

A few blocks north, at 248 S Coast Highway next to Better Buzz Coffee, Nalu Poke, Tea & Boba is moving into the space Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory occupied since 1984. In the historic Heisler Building at 400 S Coast Hwy, Noble Ace is filling a room that has sat empty since Bodega closed in early 2025. Chef Magellan Moore, formerly of Mastro's Ocean Club, is partnering with Elizabeth and Tom Schreiber on a Golden Age Hollywood speakeasy concept scheduled to debut this summer.

Read those three openings together and the pattern becomes clear. One is counter service. One is grab-and-go poke and boba. One is a full-service dinner room. Diane Armitage's Best of Laguna Beach tallied 15 F&B openings and seven closures in 2025, and read the year as a shift toward "shorter daytime stays, faster turns and lower operational exposure." The town is not walking away from hospitality. It is diversifying the risk.

New addresses to know on Coast Highway

North Laguna

Truly Pizza, until now a single Dana Point location, is moving into the "3" space near Urth Caffé for its first expansion. Around the corner, Piatti Italian, part of the Palisades Hospitality group with roughly eight sister locations across the country, is taking over 222 Ocean Blvd, a room that has cycled through Taverna, Ocean at Main, Cabana, and Sueños. A full-service Italian anchor at that address is the closest thing the north end has had to a stable evening reservation in years.

South Laguna

South Laguna is the more interesting laboratory. Truly Pizza's second location in the former Ti Amo building is now slated to open as Truly Bagels, a daytime counter concept instead of a dinner room. Empire Oyster's Raw Bar, an omakase oyster program run by Charleston restaurateur Kevin Joseph, is filling the former Thai by the Sea space near AhBA. Joseph is running three concepts under one roof there, including Urchin Coastal Coffee, Juices and Smoothies, open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. In the old Taco Loco address, Chef Chris Tzorin and Cyrus Polk are opening Taste Collective, with gourmet tacos, Black's Wings, and short rib sandwiches. Gonzo Rebollar, meanwhile, has kept the Taco Loco name alive as a concessionaire at Sawdust.

For anyone who has watched South Laguna languish through slow winters, the density of these openings inside a half-mile stretch is the story of the year.

The summer's festival calendar, in one glance

Three big-tent festivals sit within a mile of each other in the canyon, and two of them are marking 60th anniversaries this summer. If you have out-of-town family arriving in July, this is the reference sheet.

A few things worth pulling out of that grid. Sawdust runs Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday through Saturday until 10 p.m., which means it is the only one of the three main festivals that reliably stays open after a Pageant show lets out. The Pageant's 2026 program, The Greatest of All Time, leans on live-model tableaux of iconic works, and its schedule dovetails with Festival of Arts admission at the same gate. Art-A-Fair, unlike Sawdust, is not restricted to Laguna residents and pulls artists from around the world, which is why the booths feel materially different from the ceramics-and-glass mix a hundred yards away.

The Laguna Beach Independent noted that Sawdust hosts more than 180 local artisans this year. That is the number that separates the canyon from every other summer art fair in Southern California: the residency requirement means the roster changes year to year but the ethos does not.

A week in the canyon, if you live here

For residents who have already done the marquee shows a dozen times, the calendar underneath the calendar is where the summer actually lives.

• Saturday, June 20: Fête de la Musique takes over Main Beach from 11 a.m., with a 1 p.m. opening ceremony hosted by Laguna Beach Sister Cities. It is free, and it is the quietest of the summer's public events because it ends before dinner.
• Friday, June 12: Pride 365 at Laguna Art Museum, one of the calendar's smaller anchors before the canyon crowds arrive.
• Saturday, June 13: The 6th Annual Ales and Trails fundraiser for the Laguna Canyon Foundation, presented with Troy Lee Designs. This is the local-favorite pre-season event, and it usually sells through before Sawdust opens.
• Weeknights, late June onward: Sawdust's Sunday-through-Thursday hours are the residents' hours. Weekend evenings belong to visitors.
• Fridays and Saturdays, all summer: VIII by Selanne, the eight-course tasting room that grew out of a summer pop-up next to Selanne Steak Tavern, is now a standalone restaurant open only two nights a week for up to 20 guests. Book ahead.

Where the shift leaves locals

The interpretation locals should carry into July is not about any single opening. It is about the shape of the map.

Full-service dinner rooms are returning to the marquee addresses: Noble Ace in the Heisler Building, Piatti at 222 Ocean, Raw Bar in South Laguna, VIII by Selanne on weekends. At the same time, the counter-service, daytime footprint is expanding into spaces that used to hold linen napkins: Small's in the former Dizz's, Truly Bagels in the former Ti Amo, Nalu in the former Rocky Mountain. That barbell effect, with premium reservations at one end and grab-and-go counters at the other, is a rational response to a town whose visitor economy pulls hard on lunch and pulls unevenly on dinner. It is also useful to residents. There are more places to eat quickly on a weekday than there have been in a decade, and more places to book a real reservation on a Friday than there were last summer.

Two 60th anniversaries in the same canyon, three overlapping festivals, and roughly a dozen restaurant addresses changing hands within a mile of each other add up to a summer that will feel busier than usual even by Laguna standards. Plan the reservations in June. Save Sawdust weeknights for August, when the canyon settles into itself.

If you are thinking about how your own address fits into a market that is this actively rearranging itself, Connie Maxsenti has watched Laguna Beach through more of these summers than almost anyone still working the coast. Let's Connect — Schedule Your Free Consultation.