The Restaurant Wave That Just Redrew Downtown Manhattan Beach

Walk down Manhattan Avenue this week and the block feels quieter than it did ten days ago. The volleyball nets are down, the sand courts that lined the Pier for the Manhattan Beach Open have been cleared, and the crowds that packed the beach for four days of free admission and Olympic-level play have scattered back to their regular routines. But look at the storefronts along that same stretch and something has clearly shifted. Three spaces that used to belong to other restaurants now belong to someone else entirely, and one longtime local shop just packed up for a smaller space around the corner.

This isn't the kind of turnover that happens every summer. It's a specific pattern, and once you see it, it explains a lot about what downtown Manhattan Beach is becoming right now.

Three Storefronts Changed Hands This Summer

The former home of Nando Trattoria on Manhattan Avenue now belongs to Coucou, a French bistro concept already established in Venice and West Hollywood. This is its third Los Angeles location, and it leans into steak frites, oysters, and elevated French comfort food in a design-forward room that feels built for a post-Strand dinner. The restaurant runs a daily apéro hour with a cocktail and two snacks, the kind of detail that signals it's aiming for regulars, not just tourists passing through for a weekend.

A few blocks over in Manhattan Village, Saint & Second opened its doors on July 21. It's the first South Bay outpost for the Hofman Hospitality Group, which also runs locations in Long Beach and Topanga. The menu focuses on locally sourced, seasonal American cooking with a serious cocktail and whiskey program, and the hours run later than most spots in town, open until midnight most nights with a weekend brunch from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and a weekday social hour from 3 to 6 p.m.

And at 401 Manhattan Beach Blvd, the former home of Pitfire Pizza, a liquor license application confirmed that Great White is moving in. The all-day cafe concept first opened in Venice Beach in 2017 and has since expanded to Larchmont, West Hollywood, and Brentwood. Manhattan Beach will be its sixth location. No opening date has been set yet, but the paperwork is public and the intent is clear.

The Real Story Isn't the Food. It's Who's Signing the Lease

Every one of those three names has something in common that matters more than what's on the menu. None of them is a first restaurant. Coucou already has two other Los Angeles locations before this one. Saint & Second is backed by a hospitality group with a presence in two other cities. Great White is opening its sixth cafe after nine years of building the brand elsewhere first.

That's not a coincidence. Prime storefronts on Manhattan Avenue and Manhattan Beach Boulevard are expensive, and the tenants who can afford to take them on right now are the ones who've already proven a concept works somewhere else and have the capital to back a new build-out in a beach town where rents don't come cheap. A first-time restaurateur betting everything on a single location is a much harder sell to a landlord than a group that's already running three or six.

The flip side of that story is Gum Tree, the longtime local boutique and cafe that lost its previous lease and is relocating to a smaller space nearby. The owners have said the new location will keep the same mix of home goods, gifts, and lifestyle products that made it a neighborhood favorite. But the fact that a shop with a real local following got squeezed into less square footage while multi-location hospitality groups are the ones landing the anchor spaces tells you something about where the leasing math actually favors scale over local roots.

None of this means downtown is losing its character. It means the character is being written by different kinds of tenants than it used to be, and the businesses that survive the transition are the ones that adapt, whether that's a boutique finding a smaller footprint that still works or a restaurant group betting its fourth location on a beach crowd it's already studied elsewhere.

The Old Guard Isn't Going Anywhere

For all the new names, the restaurants that have defined Manhattan Beach dining for years are still doing exactly what they've always done, and doing it well. Fishing with Dynamite on Manhattan Avenue, the oyster bar and seafood spot chef David LeFevre built into a local institution, made OpenTable's list of the 100 best restaurants in the country for the fourth time and carries a listing in the Michelin Guide USA.

A few doors down, The Arthur J keeps its wood fire grill running on white oak embers, working through USDA Prime, Japanese Wagyu, and Black Angus in a mid-century modern room that's become the default choice for a special occasion dinner in the South Bay. Love & Salt, a decade-old anchor for American-Italian cooking near the pier, just brought back a notable name in the kitchen. Chef Chris Feldmeier, previously of Nancy Silverton's Osteria Mozza in Hollywood, is now running the menu there, which is worth a second look if it's been a while since your last visit. And Manhattan Beach Post, the restaurant that launched LeFevre's run in this town in the first place, is still drawing a crowd more than a decade after it opened.

The new arrivals aren't replacing these places. They're filling in around them, which is a healthier sign for the neighborhood than either extreme would be. A downtown that only had legacy spots would feel stagnant. A downtown that only had new concepts with no track record would feel unstable. Right now Manhattan Beach has both, sitting within a few blocks of each other.

A Town That Just Hosted the Sport's Biggest Weekend

None of this happened in a vacuum. The Manhattan Beach Open, the tour's longest-running beach volleyball event and one dating back to 1960, returned to the Pier from August 13 through 16 this year. General admission was free, the main draw ran 32 teams across both genders, and the weekend opened with a Walk of Fame ceremony on the sand honoring past champions. It's the kind of event that fills the town with visitors who are also potential regulars for whatever restaurant catches their eye while they're here, and Coucou, Saint & Second, and the Great White announcement all landed in the same stretch of summer.

Down at the water, The Strand House is marking 15 years of oceanfront hospitality this August with a limited-time cocktail collaboration featuring Meili Vodka, the brand co-founded by actor Jason Momoa. It's a small detail, but it fits the broader mood of the season. This is a town leaning into a strong summer, with new operators betting on it and long-standing ones finding reasons to celebrate right alongside them.

What This Actually Looks Like This Week

If you're deciding where to go tonight, here's the practical version of everything above:

• Coucou is open now on Manhattan Avenue, with a daily apéro hour from 5 to 6 p.m.
• Saint & Second in Manhattan Village runs late, until midnight most nights, with weekend brunch from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Great White doesn't have a firm opening date yet, but the space at 401 Manhattan Beach Blvd is officially spoken for.
• Gum Tree hasn't closed. It's relocating nearby, so the same products will still be findable once the move is complete.
• Fishing with Dynamite, The Arthur J, Love & Salt, and Manhattan Beach Post are all still exactly where they've always been.

Downtown Manhattan Beach isn't becoming a different place. It's becoming a place where the businesses that can prove they belong get to stay, whether that's a restaurant group with five other addresses behind it or a boutique willing to trade square footage for survival. That's worth knowing the next time you're deciding where to park for dinner.

If you're the kind of person who likes knowing what's changing in this town before it shows up on a list somewhere else, the Nicol Real Estate Group keeps a close eye on what's opening, closing, and worth the walk in Manhattan Beach and the rest of the South Bay. Start your South Bay search with a team that actually lives here.