Encinitas's Biggest Week Just Got a Restaurant Corridor to Match It

What do you do the week La Paloma turns into a surf-film theater and the beach south of town fills with amplifiers, and you still need somewhere to eat dinner that isn't the same three places everyone already knows? This September, for the first time since the festival rebranded as Sessions Surf Festival, the answer is different, because most of the new kitchens along Coast Highway 101 finished construction before the crowd showed up, not because a developer recruited them to be there.

Sessions Surf Festival runs September 12 through 19, built around Seaside Reef down the coast and the historic La Paloma Theatre on South Coast Highway 101 downtown. It's the rebrand of what used to be the Solento Surf Festival, and filmmaker Taylor Steele, who's running the show, has said Encinitas has always embodied that spirit he built the festival around. The music kicks off Saturday, September 12, at Seaside Reef, noon to 10 p.m., headlined by Osees and Unwritten Law, with Bully, Yoke Lore, and a handful of others rounding out the lineup. Sunday, September 13, opens the same stretch of sand to everyone with a free surf contest called the Count Down Cup and live music running into the evening. Then the festival moves indoors: three days of surf film premieres and filmmaker panels at La Paloma, September 17 through 19, alongside a free art exhibit running the length of the 101 corridor from the 14th through the 19th.

Nine Days, Two Blocks

Here's what makes this particular September dense rather than just busy: the festival's opening night at La Paloma lands on the same Thursday as the Encinitas 101 MainStreet Association's monthly Cruise Night, which parks classic cars along the side streets off Coast Highway from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Two blocks, one evening, two entirely different reasons to be downtown.

The Corridor That Wasn't Here Last Time

If you walked this same stretch of 101 in September 2024, you'd have found a different set of storefronts. San Diego Lineup called 2026 the corridor's biggest restaurant year in a decade, and on the same stretch as the festival's two main venues, that's not an exaggeration.

Blank Slate opened this year at 101 North Coast Highway 101, in the former Chiko space, on the same stretch of 101 as La Paloma. Aron and Pam Schwartz run it: Aron trained at the Culinary Institute of America and spent close to fifteen years at the San Diego Marriott Marquis, eight of them as executive chef, while Pam worked as a sommelier at Nobu and cooked dinners at the James Beard House. The two co-founded Ranch 45, the butcher and bottle shop in Solana Beach, before leaving that project in late 2023. Blank Slate seats 50 indoors around a 12-seat chef's counter, with a 75-person patio, and on nights without a private event, the Schwartzes run community dinners with plates under $30.

Rosemarie's Buns & Brews opened at 608 South Coast Highway 101 in late 2025. Owner Nick Balsamo built the concept around Wagyu sliders with onion confit and Kewpie mayo, starting as a food truck parked outside Harland Brewing before opening spots in Mission Beach and Ocean Beach and eventually settling in Encinitas. The Brant, a coastal-inspired restaurant expanding down from Huntington Beach, took over the former Beachside Bar and Grill site at 806 Coast Highway 101, with roughly 6,500 square feet of dining space and a 1,500-square-foot rooftop bar. Craft Coast Beer & Tacos, the Oceanside-born brewery and taco concept, moved into the old Filiberto's at 476 South Coast Highway 101 with flame-grilled carne asada, al pastor, and birria tacos on the menu.

North on Leucadia Boulevard, Chick & Hawk opened in late 2025 at 145 Leucadia Boulevard, the fried chicken concept from skateboarder Tony Hawk and chef Andrew Bachelier, complete with a skate-park-inspired patio that's become a regular stop for parents running weekend errands on that side of town.

Built By People Who Already Live Here

None of this happened because a developer picked Encinitas as a target market. Compare it to what's happening forty miles up the coast, where Dana Point Harbor is roughly halfway through a $610 million revitalization, with the developer hand-selecting restaurants and timing much of the buildout to land before the 2028 Olympics. That's a corridor built from the top down, on a schedule set by someone else.

Encinitas Brewing Company is the clearest example of the opposite approach. Four Encinitas residents wanted the city to have its own brewery, discovered nobody had filed the paperwork before them, and did it themselves. On March 8, 2026, the Encinitas Planning Commission unanimously approved their proposal to open a brewery, distillery, and restaurant at 1588 Leucadia Boulevard, in the former Islands Restaurant space at Encinitas Ranch Town Center. Co-owner Brian McBride told the commission the shopping center was:

"A bit weirdly quiet, but I think it works great for what we're trying to do."

Construction runs about five months, putting the opening around this September, though the exact date has stayed fluid. The finished space will run about 5,500 square feet inside with a 1,565-square-foot patio, and the ownership group has applied for a small beer manufacturer license, a still license, and a craft distiller license, meaning both the beer and the spirits are meant to be made on site.

That's the pattern across most of this year's openings. Balsamo could have stayed a flagship in Ocean Beach. The Schwartzes could have taken Blank Slate anywhere in the county after leaving Solana Beach. Instead they built here, in a town where the lease has to work without a second location to fall back on if the first slow winter comes.

What's Left After the Surfboards Get Racked

The festival isn't the only thing on the calendar, and most of what surrounds it doesn't need a ticket. Courtyard Rhythms runs free live music at the Lumberyard every Friday and Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. through the end of September, tucked into the courtyard at 937 South Coast Highway 101 with tables set up in front of the stage. Cruise Night draws classic cars, current builds, and the odd Tesla to the side streets off the 101 the third Thursday of the month, this time landing on the same evening as the festival's opening film night at La Paloma.

Then, on Sunday, September 27, the 30th Annual Oktoberfest takes over Mountain Vista Drive between Wandering Road and Rambling Road, a free festival stretching a third of a mile with roughly 175 exhibitors, a German beer garden with Bavarian music and dance, an international food court, and a newer addition: a local craft beer garden alongside the traditional one. It's the kind of anniversary number, thirty years running, that tells you more about the town's actual habits than any single new restaurant opening ever could.

None of this requires a reason to move here or a reason to sell. It's just what late September looks like this year in a town that's spent the past twelve months quietly filling in the gaps between its biggest annual weekend and its oldest annual tradition, one lease at a time, mostly by people who were already residents before they ever became owners.

If you're weighing what any of this means for your own plans in Encinitas, whether that's timing a move, understanding what a specific block is worth, or just making sense of how a changing restaurant corridor tends to affect property values over time, Sun Greene is easy to reach and happy to talk it through. Let's Connect.