The tenth and final Sunday of Concerts in the Park landed on September 6, and if you were at Polliwog for it, you already know the amphitheater emptied out the way it always does after the last show of a run: folding chairs collapsing in unison, the lake loop suddenly quiet, someone's kid asking why there isn't one next week. That series had run every Sunday from July 5 through September 6, ten bands moving through Big Band, Motown, and the hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, sponsored by Chevron in partnership with the city's Parks and Recreation department. It was the longest run the 2026 season had, and now it's over.
Here's what's easy to miss if you only track the concerts: nothing else in town paused. In the same ten days on either side of that last Sunday, Manhattan Beach picked up a second weekly farmers market, watched a French bistro finish moving into a beloved Italian space, and found out its marquee food festival changed its address for the first time in its three-year history. The summer calendar didn't wind down. It turned over. That's a different thing, and it's worth understanding if you live here, because the version of Manhattan Beach you're walking into this month has more moving pieces than the one you left in June.
Two Farmers Markets, Same Town, Different Days
The Manhattan Beach Farmers Market has run every Tuesday in the Civic Center Plaza since 2006, organized by the Downtown Manhattan Beach Business and Professional Association, a group of more than 300 local businesses. It's the one most residents picture when they hear "farmers market": more than 60 vendors, produce and grass-fed meats alongside prepared food, live music some weeks, tucked in near the police and fire facility off 15th Street.
What changed this summer is that it's no longer the only option. A second market opened at Manhattan Village Shopping Center on Thursdays starting July 9, after a three-year hiatus. This isn't a new concept arriving cold. It's a market that used to exist there, went dark for three years, and came back this summer running on a completely different day and clock than the downtown market.
| Downtown Tuesday Market | Manhattan Village Thursday Market | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Civic Center Plaza, 15th Street | Manhattan Village Shopping Center, next to Anthropologie |
| Hours | 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. |
| Established | 2006 | Returned July 9, 2026, after a three-year gap |
| Character | 60-plus vendors, live music, longtime downtown fixture | Newly relaunched, evening hours built around after-work shopping |
The practical difference is the clock, not the produce. An 11-to-3 window on a Tuesday works if your week is built around a lunch break or a stay-at-home schedule. A 2-to-7 window on a Thursday works if you're commuting and want dinner ingredients on the way home. Manhattan Beach didn't have that second option before July. Now residents are actually choosing between two different weekly rhythms, which is a small thing until you realize it's the first time in twenty years the town has had to make that choice at all.
The Restaurant Space That Finally Settled
If you've walked past 1131 Manhattan Avenue this year, you've watched a four-year run end and a new one begin. Nando Trattoria, the Sicilian-rooted trattoria the Vullo family opened in 2020, closed its doors, and the space has now fully reopened as Coucou, the French bistro from husband-and-wife team Jesse and Hayley Feldman. This is Coucou's third location, following Venice in 2023 and West Hollywood in 2024, and Manhattan Beach is its first stop in the South Bay.
The Feldmans led the interior redesign themselves, working burgundy leather banquettes and Calacatta marble into what used to be a trattoria dining room, a full reset rather than a repaint. Chef Jacob Wetherington, a Bouchon alum, runs a menu that leans on a live-fire grill for dishes like bone marrow and lobster spaghetti, alongside carryovers from the Venice and West Hollywood menus like the L'Haute Dog and the Soft Serve Sundae. The restaurant runs a daily Apero Hour from 4 to 5 p.m., built around the French tradition of early cocktails and small plates, and stays open until 9:45 p.m. most nights and 10:45 on Fridays and Saturdays.
One block from the pier is not a small detail here. That stretch of Manhattan Avenue has cycled through concepts before, and a French bistro group that's already proven itself in Venice and West Hollywood taking over a room that closed after four years says something about how confident operators are feeling about downtown Manhattan Beach right now.
The Festival That Changed Its Address
The clearest sign of how much is actually shifting this month is the Manhattan Beach Food & Wine festival, now in its third year, which has never before had to change venues. This September it does. The festival moves to westdrift Manhattan Beach, an Autograph Collection hotel on Parkview Avenue, and expands from a single night to two, running Friday and Saturday, September 25 and 26.
Each night will feature a different lineup of at least 20 chefs, wineries, and spirits producers, for a combined roster of 46 across the weekend, which means Friday and Saturday are genuinely separate events rather than a repeat of the same tasting. Founder and producer Shelby Russell and host chef Neal Fraser, who runs Redbird and Vibiana in downtown Los Angeles, built a lineup that draws from Dallas, Denver, New Orleans, and Fort Lauderdale as well as Los Angeles. The South Bay is well represented too: David LeFevre, who built Fishing with Dynamite into a local institution and also runs MB Post and The Arthur J, is on the roster, alongside Chris Park of The Strand House, Yoshiyasu Aiba of Sushi Roku, and Sherry Yard of Bakery by the Yard.
The move to westdrift isn't cosmetic. The resort sits on 26 acres about three miles from LAX, with a nine-hole golf course, a resort-style pool, and JUTE Coastal Bar and Kitchen on site, giving the festival room to run as a genuine two-night event rather than a single evening squeezed into a smaller footprint. Tickets start at $195 per night for guests 21 and up, and the event benefits the Culinary Careers Program, which trains underserved teenagers for restaurant and hospitality careers.
Reading the Turnover
Put these four things next to each other and a pattern shows up that none of them reveal on their own. The outdoor, free, city-run summer programming ended right on schedule. Everything that replaced it required a decision, a reservation, or a ticket: which farmers market day to keep, whether to try the new bistro on Manhattan Avenue, whether to book a table at a festival that just outgrew its old venue. That's the actual shape of a Manhattan Beach September in 2026. It's not quieter than August. It's just less free.
If you're the kind of resident who plans a week around a Tuesday market run, this is the month to notice that Thursday now exists as an option too, and to figure out which clock actually fits your life. If you haven't been past the old Nando's space, the room looks different enough that it's worth the walk. And if the last three years of Manhattan Beach Food & Wine happened somewhere you never quite got to, the move to westdrift is as good a reason as any to finally go.
None of this requires a decision about your house. It just requires paying attention to a town that's rearranging itself in real time, block by block, one market day and one restaurant lease at a time. That's usually where the more interesting shifts start anyway.
If you're weighing what any of this means for your own property, whether you're thinking about a move within the South Bay or just want a second opinion on how these changes ripple into value, The Art of Beach Real Estate is a good place to start that conversation. Schedule a private consultation with Gary.
