In Huntington Beach, "This Fall" Means Three Different Things Right Now

Walk to the end of the Huntington Beach Pier this week and you'll pass a shuttered stand that's been waiting on its promised restaurant since the city closed Let's Go Fishing years ago. Walk three blocks inland to Main Street on a Tuesday evening and you'll find something else entirely: the same certified farmers market, on the same stretch of pavement, at the same time it runs every week. Both of these count as "happening in Huntington Beach." Only one of them is a plan you can trust.

That distinction matters more than usual this season, because three separate businesses in town are currently telling residents to expect something specific "this fall." Old World Village says it. Bella Terra says it. Huntington's on the Pier, the long-stalled restaurant project at the base of the pier, says it too, in plain text on its own website. They are not equally reliable claims, and knowing why makes the difference between a calendar you can plan around and one you should hold loosely.

Three promises, one word

The one with the receipts

Old World Village has spent this summer running its usual sequence, Pretzel Fest over July 25, 26, and August 1, Bier Fest from August 8 through 16, and the 31st annual Plum Fest on August 22 and 23. Each one runs on schedule every single year, which is what makes the venue's next claim worth taking at face value. Its Oktoberfest page lists the run as beginning September 12 and continuing every Wednesday through Sunday until November 8, and the venue's own materials describe it as Orange County's longest-running version of the festival, tracing back to a Munich-born couple, Josef and Dolores Bischof, who opened the property in the late 1970s. The venue's own pages don't even fully agree on whether the streak started in 1977 or 1978, which is a small irony given how precisely they can name the Oktoberfest dates nearly five decades later. When an operation has kept a promise that many times in a row, the next one is close to a certainty.

The one that's mostly kept pace

Bella Terra has been quietly filling in gaps this year. Bacio di Latte, an artisanal gelato shop making its first Huntington Beach appearance, targeted a late-July opening at 7821 Edinger Avenue right next to Philz Coffee. A few doors down at 7777 Edinger, The NOW Massage is set to open in October in a 2,195 square foot space offering Swedish-inspired and deep tissue treatments. Neither of these is a from-scratch construction project fighting through state permitting, they're tenant improvements inside an already-operating shopping center, which is a much shorter and more predictable runway. The same logic explains why a Habit Burger a short drive away on Atlanta Avenue opened right on its announced date of May 4 this year. Retail buildouts in HB have generally landed close to schedule in 2026. That's the middle category: reasonable to expect, still worth a quick call before you make a special trip, because a specific week can slip even when the season doesn't.

The one still promising a date it's missed before

The pier restaurant has a longer story, and the details explain the skepticism. The city closed the old Let's Go Fishing stand and, in 2021, staff and several committees recommended handing the space to Ruby's Diner. The city council at the time overrode that recommendation and asked former mayor Keith Bohr to build something new instead. That project, now branded Huntington's on the Pier, was originally supposed to open in May 2022. Bohr has attributed the delay since then to permitting across three state agencies, the OC Health Department, and multiple city departments.

The financial terms explain why some council members have grown impatient. At a January 20, 2026 meeting, Councilman Chad Williams pointed out that the city has collected roughly $6,500 in total revenue from the site since 2021, on a lease that can run for close to 50 years if Bohr exercises every renewal option, with rent set at $5,500 a month unless the restaurant clears $2 million a year in sales. Councilman Pat Burns described the project as having been "kind of stumbling along," and Councilman Don Kennedy put it more bluntly, saying the city risked "rewarding bad behavior" by continuing to grant extensions. The council ultimately approved a $1.3 million bond meant to protect the city if the project falls through, rather than pull the plug outright.

None of that has stopped the build. Plans call for a 250 square foot kitchen addition, two outdoor patios totaling 630 square feet, and an expanded public restroom, with roughly 50 seats indoors, 25 on a climate-controlled patio, and 10 more near the restrooms. The menu is described as tacos, burgers, seafood, salads, and desserts, with craft cocktails, California wines, and rotating drafts. Huntington's on the Pier now lists its address as 21 Main Street and states its completion target as Fall 2026, right on the project's own site. That's not the first season-based target this project has given since its original May 2022 opening date came and went. It may well open this fall. History says to treat it as a pleasant surprise, not a date on the calendar.

What actually recurs every week, no promises required

The reliable backbone of an HB fall doesn't come with a press release at all. Surf City Nights closes three blocks of Main Street between Pacific Coast Highway and Orange Avenue every Tuesday from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., with a certified farmers market and more than 100 vendors, run by the Huntington Beach Downtown Business Improvement District. Surfin' Sundays returns to Pier Plaza roughly once a month, hosted by the Huntington Beach Surfing Museum, typically 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. with vendor booths setting up as early as 9. The most recent edition, on August 22 and 23, brought the Surf City Marketplace and live instrumental surf music back to the plaza. Neither of these needs a website claim to be trusted. They're just already true, week after week, and they're the actual backbone the rest of the season gets built around.

So if you're mapping out September and October, the order of confidence is fairly clear. Block off Oktoberfest weekends now, that one's about as close to guaranteed as a local event gets. Give Bella Terra's new spots a call before you make a special trip, since young additions can slip by a week or two even in a good year. And treat the pier restaurant as a bonus if it actually opens on schedule this time, not the anchor of your fall plans.

Small shifts like these, which businesses are filling in around a neighborhood and which projects are still finding their footing, tend to say more about a place's direction than any single headline does. If you're the kind of person who likes reading a neighborhood that closely, or you're curious how a stretch of Huntington Beach like this one fits into a longer-term plan, CART Group is always glad to talk it through. Schedule a Strategy Call whenever the timing's right.