If you've scrolled past a "Laguna Beach's Hot New Restaurants" roundup this summer, you already know the names. Amorelia. Noble Ace. Small's Smash Club. What most of those lists skip is the part that actually says something about this town: almost none of these restaurants are opening in new space. They're all moving into buildings you already know, most of which held a different restaurant for years or even decades.
That's the real story this summer. Laguna Beach isn't growing its restaurant footprint. It's reshuffling six specific addresses, some of them the same handful of buildings that have been changing hands since long before this current wave. If you live here, knowing which door is getting a new sign tells you more about the town's dining rhythm than any list of menus ever could.
"I knew for years that I needed to be in Laguna Beach because I wanted to expand to more... and this is THE creative place you do that," said Amorelia owner Gloria Seretti, who spent a few years looking for the right space before landing on the old San Shi Go building.
That quote captures something specific to this town: there's rarely a "right space" sitting empty. There's only a space someone else is about to give up.
The Same Six Doors, New Tenants
Laguna Beach's commercial strip along Coast Highway is narrow, coastal-zoned, and mostly built out. New restaurant concepts here don't get new buildings. They get someone else's old lease, sometimes years after the previous tenant closed. Here's what's actually changing hands this summer, address by address.
| Address | Used to be | Now arriving | Where things stand |
|---|---|---|---|
| 858 S. Coast Highway | San Shi Go, the "stilt" restaurant | Amorelia Cocina Artesanal | In soft open as of this spring, serving nightly 5 to 10 p.m. |
| 400 S. Coast Highway, the Heisler Building | Bodega, closed in early 2025 | Noble Ace, a Golden Age Hollywood-style speakeasy | Was on track for a summer 2026 debut, per spring reporting |
| 2794 S. Pacific Coast Highway | Dizz's As Is, closed March 13, 2026 after more than 40 years | Small's Smash Club | No opening date had been announced as of this spring |
| 320 N. Coast Highway | "3" | Truly Pizza, North Laguna location | Described in spring reporting as coming soon, no firm date yet |
| 31727 Coast Highway, South Laguna | Ti Amo | Truly Bagels | Described in spring reporting as coming soon, no firm date yet |
| Glenneyre and Thalia | Evan's Gourmet, remembered locally as Cafe Zoolu | Bar ízi | Targeting an end-of-August or early-September debut |
Six addresses. Six operators who didn't build anything new. They all waited for a door to open, sometimes literally.
Why the Address Outlasts the Menu
The clearest example is the Heisler Building. It's one of the most recognizable structures on South Coast Highway, and it's been through more restaurant concepts than most residents can name off the top of their head. It sat empty for over a year after Bodega closed in early 2025 before Noble Ace, from chef Magellan Moore of Mastro's Ocean Club and owners Elizabeth and Tom Schreiber, signed on. The building didn't change. The concept inside it did, again.
Amorelia is a similar case, just faster. The space known locally as the "stilt" restaurant had been San Shi Go before it sat dark. Owner Gloria Seretti's family has run a Costa Mesa restaurant specializing in Mexican cuisine for decades, and this Laguna location marks their first expansion, reworked around a Mexico City-centric menu instead of the Mexican food San Shi Go served. The building kept its bones. The identity reset completely.
That pattern showed up in an unplanned way this summer, too. When the World Cup final aired, Amorelia's dining room reportedly had two well-known faces watching alongside regulars: NBA Hall of Famer Ray Allen and former Dallas Mavericks majority owner Mark Cuban, both stopping in with friends to catch the match. It's the kind of detail that circulates around town for a week and then becomes part of a restaurant's local reputation, whether or not it shows up on a menu.
If you've lived in Laguna long enough to remember Ti Amo or Cafe Zoolu, you don't need directions to find Truly Bagels or Bar ízi once they open. You already know the corner. That's worth something in a town where restaurant space rarely opens up and even more rarely gets built from scratch.
The Weekend Calendar While You Wait
A few of these openings are still weeks or months out, which leaves a gap most residents will fill the way they always do: with what's already running.
- Music in the Park continues Sunday evenings through August at Bluebird Park, free and starting at 5 p.m. Missus Jones brings an Amy Winehouse tribute set on August 9, followed by Rose's Pawn Shop on August 16.
- The Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters is running its 2026 season, "The Greatest of All Time," at the Irvine Bowl through the end of the month.
- If you're catching a show, Terra Laguna Beach operates as the on-site restaurant at the Festival of Arts grounds, but seating requires a ticket to either the Festival or the Pageant itself, not a standalone reservation.
None of that is new information if you've lived here more than a summer. It's the backdrop the restaurant shuffle is playing out against.
What to Watch for Before Labor Day
Of the six swaps on the list, Bar ízi is the one closest to actually opening. Owner Sam Rabon has been renovating the former Evan's Gourmet space at Glenneyre and Thalia for months, and the target window of late August into early September puts a possible opening just weeks from now. Small's Smash Club is the most uncertain. The Dizz's As Is space has sat quiet since its March 13 closing, and no exact date had been set as of the most recent reporting. Truly Pizza and Truly Bagels were both described this spring as coming soon, without a firmer window given.
That means the one restaurant on this list confirmed open in some form right now is Amorelia, which was serving dinner nightly out of 858 S. Coast Highway as of this spring, still under its soft-open label. Everything else is either weeks away or still waiting on a date.
The turnover itself is the more interesting fact than any single opening. A town with a fixed number of restaurant-zoned buildings along a seven-mile coastline doesn't get new dining options so much as it gets new tenants in old frames. Six of them changed hands in the same stretch of months, which is a faster reshuffle than this stretch of highway has seen in a while.
Keeping track of which building is doing what is part of living here. If you want more of this kind of ground-level read on Laguna Beach and the rest of coastal Orange County, Kevin Kott Real Estate covers the neighborhood the way people who actually live in it experience it, not the way a visitor's guide does.
