Walk to the end of the pier this week and you will hear something that has not been there in four years: power tools. The fence around 21 Main Street, the spot where the Let's Go Fishing bait and tackle stand used to sit, now wraps a job site with actual framing going up behind it. Three weeks ago that same stretch of boardwalk was jammed shoulder to shoulder for the Lexus US Open of Surfing. Now it's just locals again, and the thing they're stopping to look at isn't a surf heat. It's plywood.
Those two facts, the tournament packing up and the restaurant finally getting studs, aren't separate headlines. They're the same story. For nine days every summer, Huntington Beach effectively leases itself to a national broadcast, and the day the tour trucks pull out is the day you can actually see what the town has been doing on its own the whole time. This year that includes watching a stalled project move for the first time since anyone can remember.
The Restaurant That Was Supposed to Open in 2022
The project is called Huntington's on the Pier, and its own website now lists the status plainly: currently under construction, with completion targeted for fall 2026. That single line is worth more than it looks, because for most of the past four years the honest answer was "nobody knows."
The backstory, for anyone who hasn't followed the city council meetings: after Let's Go Fishing closed, city staff and several committees recommended handing the space to Ruby's Diner in 2021. The council at the time overruled that recommendation and instead awarded it to a group led by former Mayor Keith Bohr and architect Jeff Bergsma, with a concept built around the sandwich shop Bohr remembered eating at as a kid, Neptune's Locker, on the same stretch of pier. The restaurant was supposed to open in May 2022. It didn't, and the delay stretched into a genuine council fight.
By January 2026, Bohr was back in front of the council asking for a $1.3 million bond meant to protect the city if the project fell through, and some members weren't happy about how long it had taken to get there. Councilman Pat Burns put it plainly, calling the project's progress a stumble. Councilman Chad Williams went further, pointing out that the item had been buried on a routine consent calendar years earlier without discussion.
"That's the place where multimillion dollar contracts are awarded and once in a generation leases are signed."
Williams also flagged the money on the table: under the lease, the city collects a base rent of $5,500 a month unless the restaurant clears $2 million a year, on a stretch of pier real estate that's genuinely hard to replace, with extensions that could run the deal for nearly 50 years. Bohr's response was that his side had been waiting on permits from three state agencies, the OC Health Department, and multiple city departments, and that construction hadn't started because, in his words, the city had directed staff not to issue the permits yet. His statement to the council in February closed with a line that reads differently now that the fence is actually up: he said he hoped the permits would come through that week so they could "finally commence construction."
They did. City filings describe a modest build: a 250-square-foot kitchen, roughly 50 seats inside, another 25 on a climate-controlled patio, and a smaller nook near the restrooms for 10 more. Nothing about the footprint suggests a landmark. What makes it notable is simply that it's happening, on a stretch of boardwalk that's been publicly stalled since before most current residents moved in.
The Tournament That Isn't Really the Town's
The other reason this month feels different is that the crowd that fills that same stretch of pier every July just left. The 2026 Lexus US Open of Surfing ran July 25 through August 2, and it ended with an all-Southern-California final that had extra weight for anyone local: Huntington Beach's own Kanoa Igarashi, chasing what would have been his third US Open title after wins in 2017 and 2018, lost to Encinitas surfer Jake Marshall by a hair, 14.77 to 14.07, with Igarashi unable to find the 7.38 he needed on his last wave. Sierra Kerr took the women's title the same day.
It's a small thing, but it says something true about the event itself. The US Open is the largest surfing competition in the world, and it happens here because of the waves and the pier, but it isn't really Huntington Beach's tournament to win. It belongs to the World Surf League, sponsors, and a national broadcast schedule. The town hosts it. It doesn't own it. When the flags come down, what's left is whatever the town built for itself in the meantime, which is exactly what's been visible for the past three weeks.
What Residents Actually Show Up For
Strip away the tournament and the calendar that's actually running right now looks smaller and more repeatable, which is the point. Three things carry most of the year without needing a single out-of-town visitor:
- Surf City Nights, every Tuesday from roughly 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., closes three blocks of Main Street between Orange and Pacific Coast Highway for a certified farmers market on Walnut Avenue, a food court, and live music.
- Surfin' Sundays at Pier Plaza, hosted by the Huntington Beach Surfing Museum, free and running from about 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. with vendors setting up as early as 9.
- Third Friday on Main, run by Huntington Main Street from April through October, 3 to 7 p.m., with a different theme each month and an after-hours stretch from 7 to 9 for the adult crowd. This past Friday, August 21, the theme was Streets in Motion, built around walking, biking, trail use, and skateboarding rather than shopping.
None of these needed the Open's crowds to work, and none of them stopped for it either. They're the part of the calendar that was already there before the cameras showed up and will still be there after Huntington's on the Pier finally opens.
The New Places Filling in the Gaps
Late summer also brought a round of smaller openings that had nothing to do with the tournament. Bella Terra, the outdoor shopping center on Edinger Avenue, added Bacio di Latte, an artisanal gelato shop that opened in late July next to Philz Coffee, with The NOW Massage set to fill a 2,195-square-foot space at the same center in October. A new Habit Burger opened on Atlanta Avenue back on May 4, timed well before the surf crowds arrived. And Old World Village wrapped its annual Bier Fest on August 16 after a nine-day run of German food, imported beer, and live music that's free and open to all ages.
None of these are destination openings the way the pier restaurant is. They're the kind of additions that only matter if you already live close enough to use them on a random Tuesday, which is exactly who they're for.
What's Left Before Fall
There's still a stretch of summer left on the calendar. Labor Day weekend is coming, and the first weekend of September brings two events on the same day, September 5: HB Civil War Days on Gothard Street and Asia Pop Fest at Golden West College, a K-pop fan festival built around a BTS meetup. Neither has anything to do with the beach, which is its own small proof that Huntington Beach's actual social calendar has never depended entirely on the coastline.
By the time fall arrives, the fence at 21 Main Street is supposed to come down for good, four years after the date it was originally promised. Whether that holds will say something about how the next permit fight, whenever it comes, gets handled. For now, the plywood is up, the crowds from the Open are gone, and the pier belongs to whoever actually lives close enough to walk past it twice.
If you're the kind of person who notices when a stalled project on your own street finally starts moving, you probably already know more about Huntington Beach's rhythms than most market reports ever capture. When the conversation turns from watching construction to making a move of your own, Tina Tan Group has spent its career reading exactly these kinds of local signals. Reach out when you're ready to talk about what's next.
