Walk from The Strand up Pier Avenue on a Thursday evening in August and the block feels different than it did a year ago. The bar-forward energy is still there, but the marquee spots between Hermosa and Manhattan Avenues are increasingly chef-driven, reservation-required, and priced to match. That's the story worth telling this summer: Pier Avenue isn't losing its personality, it's stacking a second layer on top of it.
For residents, this matters in small, practical ways. A walk-in on a Friday used to be a reasonable plan. Now it depends on which block. Below is what has opened, what's about to, and what it means for how you plan a night out in your own zip code.
The bar that just opened at 73 Pier
Tiki Kai took over the Pier Plaza corner earlier this year and is now serving nightly. It opens at 4 p.m. every day and stays late, closing at 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, midnight on Friday and Saturday, and 10 p.m. on Sunday. Lunch and brunch service are on the roadmap but not live yet.
The ownership is worth knowing because you already know their other rooms. Tiki Kai comes from Brian Eldridge, Patrick Mescall, Dennis Doody, and Alex Osorio, the group behind The Hula Hula Room, Eat at Joe's, Paddy O'Brien's Irish Pub, and The Bounty Room. In other words, four bars that have shaped how locals drink in Hermosa are now behind a fifth concept fifty feet from the sand.
The room itself is built for a photo. A 14-foot tiki mask door was hand-carved by Peter Asmar of Asmar Studios, and interior designer Davis Ink built out a partially covered lounge anchored by a "lava island" feature. Eldridge framed the intent plainly, telling LAMag he wanted "a place where locals walk in to find friends waiting to greet them."
If your usual Friday routine involves a drink before dinner, this is the closest new option to the pier itself.
Two openings still ahead, both on Pier
The bigger change is what hasn't opened yet. Two chef-driven concepts are lined up on Pier Avenue, and both replace restaurants residents will remember.
| Incoming concept | Previous tenant | Format | Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kasamar | Playa Hermosa Fish & Oyster Co. | Coastal tavern, seafood and drinks | August 2026 |
| Sushi Bar | Slay Hermosa | Omakase tasting menu | Announced, no date set |
Kasamar is the more immediate one. Co-founder Stephanie De Los Santos told What Now Los Angeles the project is expected to open in August 2026, with a coastal-inspired menu centered on approachable seafood in a relaxed tavern setting. The location matters as much as the concept. Pier Avenue's ocean-facing block has historically leaned casual, and losing Playa Hermosa Fish & Oyster left a gap that a full-service seafood room is stepping directly into.
Sushi Bar is the more telling arrival. The brand is known for a curated omakase experience with premium seasonal seafood, and it's taking over the former Slay Hermosa space. Omakase pricing is not a walk-in category. When a tasting-menu operator picks Hermosa over its usual Westside footprint, it's a signal about who is now eating dinner on Pier Avenue.
The Michelin nod that reframes the block
Two blocks off Pier, at 1220 and 1238 Hermosa Avenue, the shift is already visible in outside recognition. Vin Folk, run by chefs Kevin De Los Santos and Katya Shastova, was named a 2026 Michelin Bib Gourmand, the guide's designation for good quality and good value cooking. The menu is shareable and globally minded, with a mussels tart built like a seafood pot pie in warm fennel cream, a chili crab served over risotto, and a goat cheese fromage blanc with pear and orange blossom honey granita to close.
Michelin's own note on Vin Folk is worth reading in the official listing, and the inspectors flag what any local already knows: reservations matter. The room is small and popular.
Vin Folk sits inside a short stretch that also holds RYLA at 1220 Hermosa Avenue, the contemporary Japanese room from Ray Hayashi and Cynthia Hetlinger where the Black Truffle Fried Rice and the Local White Seabass steamed in lotus leaf anchor the menu, and AttaGirl LA at 1238 Hermosa, a coastal Mediterranean spot known for whipped feta with pita, charred octopus, and spiced lamb bolognese. Baran's 2239, the Baran brothers' bistro under Executive Chef Tyler Gugliotta, rounds out the corridor with more than 100 wines by the bottle and 40-plus beers.
Read that lineup back to yourself. Bib Gourmand contemporary Japanese, coastal Mediterranean, a wine-forward bistro. Three years ago, the same three storefronts read very differently.
What this changes about a Friday night
The practical read for residents is that Pier Avenue and the two blocks north of it now function as two dining environments layered on the same street.
The first is the one you already know. Pier Plaza remains built for walk-ins, sunset drinks, and late nights. Tiki Kai fits cleanly here. So does the pull of the Comedy & Magic Club, which is still booking headliners on Saturday nights, including Jay Leno's residency dates through the summer.
The second is a reservation zone. Vin Folk, RYLA, AttaGirl, Baran's, and, once open, Sushi Bar all reward planning ahead. If your habit has been to decide where you're eating after you've parked, that habit will need an update on the Hermosa Avenue stretch specifically.
A few things worth building into the routine:
- Book Vin Folk earlier in the week. Michelin recognition tends to compress availability for two to three months after the announcement.
- Treat Kasamar's opening week as a soft launch. Coastal seafood rooms on Pier Ave draw a mixed crowd of locals and beach traffic in their first month. If you want a quiet look, aim for a Tuesday or Wednesday.
- Use Tiki Kai as the pre-dinner move. Its 4 p.m. open pairs cleanly with a 7 p.m. reservation two blocks up.
- Farmers Market Fridays still anchor the week. The Hermosa Beach Certified Farmers Market at 1035 Valley Drive runs Fridays, and it remains the best low-effort way to start a weekend that ends with dinner on Hermosa Avenue.
The quieter local layer
Not everything worth doing is new. The Hermosa Beach Historical Society's summer exhibit, CHEERS, HERMOSA, running at the Hermosa Beach Museum, is a look at the historic bars that shaped the town's social memory, which reads a little differently in a summer when a fifth Eldridge-Mescall-Doody-Osorio bar just opened at Pier Plaza. The city's free Sunday summer concerts at the pier continue through the end of the season, and The Lighthouse Cafe keeps a steady Sunday afternoon rotation, including yacht-rock and tribute sets that draw the same crowd year after year.
These are the things that don't change when a Michelin inspector shows up. They're also the reason the new arrivals are here in the first place. Restaurants pick Hermosa because the resident base already treats the town like a neighborhood rather than a destination, and that's the layer chef-driven concepts want to sit on top of.
Reading the room
If you own a home here, you don't need a market update to tell you what a Bib Gourmand three blocks from your front door means. Dining density is one of the cleaner tells of who is choosing to live somewhere and how long they plan to stay. The pattern on Pier Avenue this summer is a group of operators betting that Hermosa's resident base wants the same food they'd drive to Venice or Silver Lake for, without the drive.
The version of that bet that matters most for the fall is Kasamar. A coastal seafood tavern replacing a coastal seafood tavern is a smaller signal on paper than an omakase room opening in a former nightlife space, but the location on Pier Avenue's ocean-facing block gives it more foot traffic than anywhere on Hermosa Avenue. If it lands, the two-block-inland dining corridor and the Pier Plaza corridor stop being two separate categories and start feeling like one connected stretch.
Watch for that in September. Whether you're planning a birthday dinner, a first anniversary in a new house, or just a Tuesday, the reservation calendar is where the shift will show up first.
If you're weighing what these changes mean for the way you use your home, from where friends stay when they visit to how you'd host in a courtyard or on a deck two blocks from the sand, Dreams Worth Living is here for the conversation. Discover your South Bay home.
