Laguna Beach's Restaurant Turnover Isn't Random. Here's the Pattern.
August 27, 2026
August 27, 2026
For most of last year, four addresses in Laguna Beach sat empty at the same time. Not two, not three. Four storefronts, each with a built-in following, each going dark within months of one another. Any one of them closing would have been a story locals traded over coffee. All four together felt like something bigger was happening to the town's dining spine, and nobody could quite say what.
Between March and July of this year, every one of those spaces turned back on. A fifth long-vacant address is about to join them. And if you look at what actually moved into each one, rather than just counting the reopenings, a pattern shows up that tells you more about where Laguna's dining economy is headed than any single new menu could.
Here's what sat empty, and for how long:
A fifth space is following the same arc on a slight delay. The old Evan's Gourmet location at Thalia and Glenneyre, a corner locals also remember as Cafe Zoolu and ROUX Creole in earlier lives, closed in August 2025 and has sat empty since.
Five spaces, five different economic bets on what comes next. That's the part worth slowing down on.
The easy story is "restaurants keep opening in Laguna." The more accurate story is that owners are placing very different sizes of bet depending on where in town the space sits, and that split tells you something about risk appetite in this market right now.
| Address | What Closed | What Moved In | The Bet |
|---|---|---|---|
| 400 S. Coast Highway (Heisler Building) | Bodega & Skyloft | Noble Ace | Full-service supper club, veteran hires, reservation-driven |
| 858 S. Coast Highway (the stilt house) | San Shi Go | Amorelia Cocina Artesanal | 185-seat full-service dining room |
| 320 N. Coast Highway | "3" | Truly Pizza | Full-service, evening-focused |
| 31727 Coast Highway, South Laguna (Ti Amo) | Ti Amo | Truly Bagels | Counter service, daytime only |
| 2794 S. Pacific Coast Hwy | Dizz's As Is | Small's Smash Club | Casual bar and burger counter |
| 31715 Coast Highway, South Laguna | Former Thai restaurant | Empire Oyster's Raw Bar | Intimate 10 to 12 seat omakase bar |
Look at the right column. Downtown and the anchor points near Main Beach are pulling in the biggest, slowest, most staff-heavy concepts in town. The bookends, North Laguna past Urth Caffe and South Laguna past Aliso, are pulling in the leanest ones. Same reshuffle year, opposite risk profile depending on the block.
Nowhere is the size of the bet more obvious than the Heisler Building. This is the most-watched address on Coast Highway, and whoever took it over needed a concept that could justify the rent and the attention. Noble Ace, a Golden Age Hollywood-inspired speakeasy and restaurant, opened Monday, June 29, with Chef Magellan Moore, formerly of Mastro's Ocean Club, at the helm alongside owners Elizabeth and Tom Schreiber.
The staffing tells you how serious the bet is. Hillari Galindo came in as General Manager after two decades split between Mastro's Ocean Club and Red O in Newport Beach. Danny Reyes returned as Assistant GM after starting his Laguna career at Odessa. Design came from Ralitsa Kombakis of Studio Rallou, blending the Heisler Building's history with a modern supper club feel. That is a deep hiring bench for a single opening.
Schreiber summed up the pricing target simply, telling a local outlet, "this is like if Hillstone and Mastro's had a baby." That's a room built for a reservation night, not a walk-in.
Farther down Coast Highway, the calculus flipped entirely. Dizz's As Is closed after 40 years, and what replaced it wasn't another full-service continental menu with rack of lamb and raspberry duck. Small's Smash Club, founded by professional snowboarder Jordan Small, took the space, kept the ocean view and the existing liquor license, and opened in June with a fan line that stretched through the weekend. Same building, same view, entirely different operating model. One venue is staffed for a slow evening. The other is built to turn tables fast.
The Ti Amo building in South Laguna had sat dark long enough that most locals stopped expecting anything to fill it. What's arriving instead of another full dinner-house is Truly Bagels, a daytime counter concept from the same team behind Truly Pizza, which is simultaneously opening a full-service pizza location at 320 N. Coast Highway in the former "3" space. One brand, two concepts, deliberately bookending the town with a heavier bet up north and a lighter one down south.
South Laguna picked up a third new tenant this cycle in a much smaller footprint. Empire Oyster's Raw Bar, a Charleston-based concept from Kevin Joseph, finally landed at 31715 Coast Highway, a half block from AHBA, after first being announced back in 2024 with a target opening that slipped by more than a year. It seats 10 to 12 people. That's not a room built to anchor a block. It's a room built to survive on a thin, dedicated following without the overhead of a full kitchen brigade.
If you live between Aliso and Three Arch, the practical effect of this stretch of openings is a walkable weekday breakfast option that hasn't existed in South Laguna since Ti Amo went dark, plus a genuinely rare oyster counter in a region that hasn't had one.
The fifth space, the old Evan's Gourmet corner at Thalia and Glenneyre, is the one still in motion. Owner Sam Rabon is turning it into Bar ízi, a small plates concept targeting an end-of-August or early-September debut. Rabon has reportedly designed the space to honor a specific, beloved Laguna culinary figure from the building's past, which puts this opening somewhere between the two bets already on the board. It's not a 185-seat dining room chasing a reservation crowd like Amorelia or Noble Ace. It's also not a 10-seat counter like the Raw Bar. Small plates concepts tend to live in the middle, built for a longer bar-side visit without the staffing load of a full supper club.
One local food newsletter that's tracked these openings closely counted 15 new food and beverage concepts across Laguna Beach in 2025 against seven closures, and described the overall shift as a recalibration of risk favoring shorter daytime stays, faster turns, and lower operational exposure over the long, full-staff dinner shifts that used to define Coast Highway. Bar ízi will be a useful test of whether that daytime lean holds even for a concept built around an evening bar experience.
None of this changes where you'll eat this Tuesday. What it does is give you a way to read the next round of restaurant news instead of just reacting to it. When a new lease gets signed on a prime block near Main Beach, expect a staffed-up, reservation-driven concept chasing a night out. When something opens on the far ends of town, in North Laguna past the usual tourist pull or South Laguna below Aliso, expect a leaner operation betting on locals who'll come back for a fast lunch or a weekday coffee rather than visitors looking for a special occasion.
That split isn't an accident of who happened to sign a lease when. It's what the actual risk math looks like right now for anyone deciding what kind of restaurant to bet on in this town, and it's a more useful lens for the next opening announcement than another list of what just closed.
If you're thinking about what a shift like this means for a specific block or property in Laguna Beach, or you're weighing a move here and want a read on what a neighborhood's daily rhythm actually looks like beyond the headline listing, Andrea Ballesteros has spent years watching this town's blocks change hands. Let's Connect.
We will work tirelessly to ensure you have the best experience whether you are selling your home, looking to purchase an investment property or searching for your forever house. We are here for you and don’t just walk away after closing. We pride ourselves on our long term relationships with our clients and will guide you through all the necessities you need before, during and after your selling or buying experience.