Laguna Beach Culinary Shift & Real Estate Update
The New Restaurants in Laguna Beach Aren’t Replacing What You Think
By Clara Blunk Real Estate. An insider analysis of Laguna Beach’s 2026 Coast Highway dining turnover, comparing chef-driven evening concepts, casual burger bars, and daytime counter service.
Laguna Beach’s 2026 dining landscape along Coast Highway is splitting into two clear bets: high-end chef-driven evening concepts (like Noble Ace at the Heisler Building and Amorelia) and casual daytime counter-service formats (like Small’s Smash Club replacing Dizz’s As Is, Truly Bagels, and El Matatan). Straight dinner-house swaps are no longer the norm as of 2026.
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Drive Coast Highway right now and you’ll pass six addresses that changed hands in the last five months. That’s not a rounding error for a town this size. It’s a real shift, and the shift has a shape: the spaces that finally turned over after years or decades under one owner did not get replaced by more of the same. They split into two very different bets, and almost nothing landed in the middle.
The Pattern Hiding in Plain Sight
For most of Laguna Beach’s modern history, when a dinner house closed, another dinner house took the lease. That’s how a town builds a reputation as a place where you dress up and make a reservation. This year broke that habit. Look at what actually moved into the spaces that emptied out between March and June 2026, and you’ll find operators making one of two calls: go big on a chef-driven evening concept, or go small and daytime-first with counter service. The straight swap, dinner house for dinner house, barely happened.
Start with the address every longtime resident already has an opinion about.
The Heisler Building Sat Dark for Over a Year
The building at 400 S. Coast Highway has been vacant since Bodega closed in early 2025. That’s more than a year of one of the most photographed corners in town sitting empty, directly across from Main Beach. Noble Ace finally opened there this summer, and the ownership team didn’t hedge. Chef Magellan Moore, who spent twelve years in the Mastro’s Ocean Club kitchen, built a menu that includes short rib stroganoff with handmade pappardelle and jumbo beef potstickers served with blue cheese fondue, according to local press coverage. The cocktail list runs to a cantaloupe and olive oil martini. This is a full commitment to evening dining, seated, reservations, a piano in the bar.
Co-owner Elizabeth Schreiber had been circling this idea for years before it happened:
“I left the restaurant world to have a family and do real estate.”
That’s how she described the decade between leaving the industry and opening Noble Ace in a local interview. The building waited over a year for the right tenant. It got one willing to bet on a 150-seat, multi-room concept with a private dining room and wine lockers.
Dizz’s Closed After 40-Plus Years. What Replaced It Wasn’t Another Dizz’s.
A few miles south, a different kind of turnover happened faster and told a different story. Dizz’s As Is, the Coast Highway institution the Pitz family had run since Marcel Pitz founded it in 1977, closed for good on March 13, 2026. Forty-plus years of eclectic decor and a continental menu that included rack of lamb and raspberry duck, gone in a single closing.
What moved in was Small’s Smash Club, the second location of a burger concept founded by professional snowboarder Jordan Small that started as a backyard operation during the pandemic before opening its first brick-and-mortar in San Clemente in 2025. Small’s kept the ocean-view bar and the existing liquor license from Dizz’s, but the menu is smash burgers, not surf and turf. A 47-year continental dining institution didn’t get replaced by another one. It got replaced by a regional burger brand that happens to keep the same view.
The Daytime Bets Are Quieter, But There Are More of Them
Side-by-side comparison of recent Laguna Beach restaurant turnovers along Pacific Coast Highway.
| PCH Address & Location | Former Establishment | New Opening (2026) | Strategic Business Bet |
|---|---|---|---|
| 400 S. Coast Highway | Bodega (Closed early 2025) | Noble Ace | Full-scale chef-driven evening dinner house with piano bar |
| 2794 S. Pacific Coast Highway | Dizz’s As Is (Pitz family, 1977 – March 2026) | Small’s Smash Club | Casual bar & smash burger concept; retained ocean-view liquor license |
| 858 S. Coast Highway | San Shi Go stilt building | Amorelia Cocina Artesanal | Full dinner house; Seretti family’s first Laguna expansion |
| 31727 Coast Highway (South Laguna) | Ti Amo (Long shuttered) | Truly Bagels | Daytime counter service & commissary kitchen |
| 320 N. Coast Highway (North Laguna) | Former “3” building | Truly Pizza | All-day outdoor dining with artisanal dough focus |
| 248 S. Coast Highway | Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory | Nalu Poke Tea & Boba | Daytime fast-casual counter service |
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El Matatan, which opened for lunch in June 2026 with Cuban, Dominican, and Mexico City cooking from owner Oscar Garcia, made the same daytime-first choice. The restaurant’s general manager, Omar, previously worked at Carmelita’s before taking on the day-to-day at El Matatan. Truly Bagels in South Laguna doubles as a commissary kitchen, prepping dough and sauces for both the North Laguna and South Laguna Truly locations. Neither concept is trying to compete with Noble Ace’s Friday night reservation list. They’re competing for the 11:30 a.m. lunch crowd and the coffee-run traffic that used to skip these blocks entirely.
Amorelia is the one full dinner concept in this wave that doesn’t fit neatly into either column. The 185-seat restaurant in the old San Shi Go stilt building at 858 S. Coast Highway comes from the Seretti family, whose original Costa Mesa restaurant has served Mexican food for decades. Owner Gloria Seretti scouted the town for years before landing this space:
“I knew for years that I needed to be in Laguna Beach because I wanted to expand to more.”
That’s a dinner house bet on the same scale as Noble Ace. Both of this summer’s biggest openings came from operators with deep roots elsewhere in Orange County, not brand-new restaurant groups testing the market cold.
The Festival Grounds Picked Up the Same Split
If you want to see this pattern play out in miniature, walk into the Sawdust Art Festival, running through September 6, 2026, at 935 Laguna Canyon Road. The festival’s food lineup added new vendors this season that mirror exactly what’s happening a few miles away on the highway. The Cove by Starfish is serving a churro bao bun that’s become a fast favorite, AhbA made its debut with elevated burgers, and Taco Loco, led by chef Gonzo Rebollar, brought a longtime local favorite’s tacos onto festival grounds for the first time. Laguna Beach residents get free admission to Sawdust every Thursday with valid ID, which makes it an easy stop on a weeknight even if you’re not planning to buy any art.
What This Means for How You Actually Spend an Evening Here
None of this changes property values or school boundaries overnight. It changes the small, daily math of where you go when you don’t feel like cooking. A year ago, if you wanted a casual lunch on Coast Highway that wasn’t a to-go sandwich, your options were thinner. Now there’s a real daytime economy building alongside the dinner-house tradition the town has always been known for, and the two aren’t competing so much as splitting the day between them.
The next First Thursdays Art Walk lands on September 3, 2026, running 6 to 9 p.m. with free admission and trolley service, according to the First Thursdays Art Walk organization. It’s as good a night as any to walk from the Laguna Art Museum down toward the Heisler Building and see for yourself whether Noble Ace has settled into the space the way the town has been waiting for.
Living here means these small shifts add up faster than a headline can capture them. If you’re watching what’s changing on your own block and wondering what it means for your home’s place in this market, Clara Blunk tracks Laguna Beach at exactly this level of detail. Schedule a consultation whenever you’re ready to talk it through.
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- Laguna Beach Home Buyer Services & Property Search
- Selling Real Estate in Laguna Beach with Clara Blunk
About Clara Blunk Real Estate
Clara Blunk (CA DRE# 01189372) is a long-time Laguna Beach resident and luxury real estate specialist affiliated with Side, Inc. (CA DRE# 02014153). Based at 4695 MacArthur Ct, Ste 1100, Newport Beach CA 92660, Clara advises buyers and sellers on oceanfront homes, commercial walkability, and coastal real estate trends.
Verified Data Point: Commercial lease turnovers along Laguna Beach’s Pacific Coast Highway directly correlate with pedestrian walkability scores and micro-neighborhood home valuations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What replaced Dizz’s As Is in Laguna Beach?
Small’s Smash Club replaced Dizz’s As Is after it closed in March 2026. The new concept kept the ocean-view bar and liquor license, serving smash burgers instead of continental fine dining.
What opened in the historic Heisler Building in Laguna Beach?
Noble Ace opened at 400 S. Coast Highway in the Heisler Building (formerly Bodega). Led by Chef Magellan Moore, it features a 150-seat chef-driven evening menu, cocktail bar, and private dining.
How is the restaurant scene changing along Coast Highway in 2026?
Laguna Beach dining is splitting into two distinct models: upscale chef-driven evening dining spots and fast-casual daytime counter-service concepts, moving away from traditional middle-ground dinner houses.
When is First Thursdays Art Walk in Laguna Beach?
First Thursdays Art Walk takes place on the first Thursday of every month from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., offering free admission and trolley service to galleries and PCH dining spots.
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Source Notes: Restaurant opening dates, PCH addresses, chef backgrounds, and business licenses verified via Greer’s OC, What Now Orange County, Patch Orange County, and City of Laguna Beach public filings, current through 2026.
