Laguna Beach's Coast Highway Turned Over in 2026. Here's What Actually Changed.

Drive Coast Highway from the Montage entrance down through South Laguna and you'll pass at least four addresses that had different signage in January 2025 than they do now. That's not unusual for a town where restaurants have always come and gone. What's unusual is the shape of it: for most of 2025, four of the most-watched storefronts in Laguna Beach sat dark at the same time, and between March and July 2026, every one of them turned back on.

Read the list of what moved in, and a pattern shows up that matters more than any single opening. The corner buildings, the ones with the history and the ocean views, are going to full-service dinner houses that expect you to make a reservation. The smaller footprints are going to counter service built for a quick stop on your way somewhere else. If you're deciding where to eat this month, that split tells you more than any menu description will.

The corner that sat empty the longest

No vacancy in town got watched more closely than 400 South Coast Highway, the Heisler Building across from Main Beach. It went dark when Bodega and Skyloft closed in January 2025, and it stayed that way for a year and a half. Noble Ace opened there on June 29, 2026, built around a Golden Age Hollywood speakeasy concept from chef Magellan Moore, previously of Mastro's Ocean Club, and owners Elizabeth and Tom Schreiber. The staffing tells you how seriously the group is taking the room: general manager Hillari Galindo spent two decades at Mastro's Ocean Club before a stint at Newport Beach's Red O, and assistant GM Danny Reyes started his Laguna career at Odessa before returning to lead front of house here.

The design pairs the Heisler Building's original character with a modern supper club feel, courtesy of Ralitsa Kombakis of Studio Rallou. Hours run Sunday through Thursday from 4:30 to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 4:30 to 11 p.m., with a piano bar downstairs that works as a walk-in and an upstairs dining room and chef's table that don't.

The 40-year run that ended in March

Two miles south, a different kind of closure opened a different kind of door. Dizz's As Is, owned and operated by the Pitz family since Marcel Pitz founded it in 1977, closed permanently on March 13, 2026, ending a run of more than 40 years. The space at 2794 South Pacific Coast Highway kept its ocean view and its existing bar and liquor license, but the new tenant made a completely different bet than a continental menu built around rack of lamb and raspberry duck.

Small's Smash Club, founded by professional snowboarder Jordan Small, opened its second location there in June 2026 after debuting in San Clemente in 2025. The menu is a smash burger, tallow fries, onion rings, beer and cocktails. When it opened on a Friday in June, the line stretched through the weekend, which tells you something about how a casual, ocean-view concept performs in this town when the price point drops and the wait time doesn't.

The bookend strategy

The most deliberate move in the whole reshuffle belongs to the team behind Truly Pizza, which opened its original Dana Point location in 2023 and is now running two concepts at once, one at each end of Laguna's Coast Highway corridor. The North Laguna location took over 320 North Coast Highway, the former home of restaurant "3," and is now serving California-focused salads, focaccia sandwiches, charcuterie and pizza (its Umami Mushroom pie was named Pizza of the Year by 50 Top Pizza USA's 2026 rankings, and the restaurant itself placed fourth nationally). Summer hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., closed Tuesdays, with weekend reservations recommended.

The South Laguna half of the strategy is still working through the pipeline. Trade filings with OC Health show a shop called Truly Bagels slated for 31727 Coast Highway, the long-shuttered Ti Amo space, with Truly Pizza co-owner Donna Baldwin as the registered agent. If it opens as planned, it will be the first walkable bagel option in that stretch of South Laguna since Ti Amo went dark years ago, which matters if you live between Aliso and Three Arch and have been driving north for a coffee-and-bagel run.

What filled the smaller gaps

Not every 2026 opening fits neatly into the dinner-house-versus-counter split, but most of the smaller storefronts leaned toward speed and daytime use. Amorelia soft-opened this spring in the old San Shi Go space at 858 South Coast Highway, the stilt-house building perched over the highway. It's a 185-seat departure from what that address used to serve: owner Gloria Seretti, whose family has run a Costa Mesa restaurant specializing in Mexican cuisine for decades, brought her first expansion to Laguna with a Mexico City-centric fine dining focus, working with her son Daniel Paniagua.

A few blocks north, Nalu Poke, Tea & Boba is filling the space next to Better Buzz Coffee at 248 South Coast Highway, across from Main Beach. That storefront belonged to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory since 1984, when it was one of the company's first locations outside its home base in Durango, Colorado. Losing a four-decade tenant is the kind of thing that would have been a story on its own in a quieter year.

Further south, Empire Oyster Raw Bar took over a former Thai restaurant space a half block from AhbA, bringing an omakase-style raw bar concept to a stretch of highway that didn't have one.

The reshuffle, mapped

Why the split is the actual story

Local restaurant tracker Best of Laguna Beach counted 15 new food and beverage concept openings against seven closures across 2025, a net gain that sounds healthy on its own. But a net gain in count doesn't tell you what kind of businesses are replacing what kind of businesses, and that's where the real question sits. A town that depends on overnight visitors and evening activity needs full-service dinner hours to keep the sidewalks occupied after dark, not just daytime counters that close when the sun does.

What 2026 shows is both trends moving at once, geographically sorted. The historic corner buildings, the ones with the views and the name recognition, are drawing operators willing to build a full dinner program and staff it with people who've run rooms like Mastro's and Odessa. The smaller, less visible storefronts are drawing faster, lower-overhead concepts built around a single food category. Small's Smash Club splits the difference: full bar and liquor license kept intact, but a menu and price point built for a walk-in crowd rather than a reservation book.

If you're planning where to eat this month, that's the map to use. Noble Ace and Truly Pizza's North Laguna location are the ones you call ahead for. Small's, Nalu Poke, and eventually Truly Bagels are the ones you walk into on your way somewhere else. Amorelia and Empire Oyster Raw Bar sit in between, destination-worthy but newer to the neighborhood's routine.

Coast Highway didn't just get new restaurants this year. It got clearer about which stretches are built for a planned evening and which ones are built for a Tuesday errand, and now you know which is which before you've circled the block looking for parking.

If you are weighing a move to or within Laguna Beach, reach out to Adam Nelson, REALTOR® with First Team Real Estate.

You can also browse current homes for sale in Laguna Beach to see what is on the market right now.