When did you last walk down Cedar Street on purpose? If the answer is "on the way to a Kuumbwa show," the street has changed since then. In 2026, downtown Santa Cruz's openings landed mostly on the blocks around Pacific Avenue, not on Pacific itself. Many of them are in spaces that had been empty for years.

Eight of thirteen

On September 3, the Downtown Association of Santa Cruz published its list of businesses that had opened downtown so far this year. There were thirteen. Sort them by street and a pattern shows up.

Pacific Avenue got three: a national clothing retailer, an acai and smoothie shop, and a Pilates studio. The three side streets got eight. Since that list came out, a ninth has opened on Walnut. The side-street openings are mostly small, owner-run places. Several of them took over rooms that had sat empty for a long time.

Cedar Street: rooms that finally reopened

The best example is at 320 Cedar. The Poet & The Patriot Irish pub held that space for decades until it closed in 2020, Lookout Santa Cruz reported. Owner Max Turigliatto then spent three years turning it into The Alley Oop, a New Orleans-inspired cocktail lounge, slowed by what Lookout called a difficult permitting process. It opened on Friday, February 20.

The Alley Oop is built around its neighbor. It shares the small Theater Square parking lot off Cedar with Kuumbwa Jazz, and Turigliatto told Lookout he meant it as a place for a drink and a snack before or after a show. He went to Kuumbwa's jazz camps as a kid, and back in 2023 he said he hoped the lounge would "give a little bit of romance to that side of downtown." The menu is small plates made to share between two people: prawns remoulade, "Jazz Alley" chicken wings, a burger and lamb chops. "We're a cocktail lounge with food, not a restaurant with cocktails," he told Lookout. When it opened, it kept hours every day from 5 p.m. to midnight.

A few blocks south, at 525 Cedar, Gran Gelato Caffè shows the other kind of space that has been slow to fill: new construction. Sandro and Luciana Costanza, who also own Pizzeria La Bufala, opened it in March on the ground floor of the Cedar Street Family Apartments. That building opened in 2024 at Cedar and Cathcart. Lookout reported that developers had struggled to find retail tenants for downtown's new commercial space, and that the Anton Pacific Apartments at Pacific and Laurel had gone four years with no commercial tenant.

The Costanzas said help from the developer made the difference. "They built out the structure, all the plumbing and electrical for us. We did the floor and the finishes," Sandro told Lookout. The shop makes 12 gelato flavors in house and also sells sfogliatelle, espresso, and salads and sandwiches at lunch. Its bistro tables sit along the pedestrian walkway between Cedar and Center streets.

Farther up the street at 1016 Cedar is Switch Bakery & Bistro, run by Amanda and Joshua Bradley. It's a gluten-free bakery and café with pastries, breads, focaccia and a lunch menu that rotates. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported it serving customers in a soft opening in the first days of January, though Edible Monterey Bay later described it as having opened late in 2025. Edible Monterey Bay reported that the menu also covers keto, vegan, sugar-free and low-FODMAP diets.

Locust Street: one flight up

Cedar's openings reused ground floors. On Locust, the best one is upstairs. The Hotel opened March 12 on the upper floor of 200 Locust, above The Redroom. Co-owners Doug Millan and Zac Crandell renovated a building that first opened as Hotel Germania in 1877, Edible Monterey Bay reported. The Downtown Association calls it the first hotel building in Santa Cruz. The menu runs to bar food: fried ravioli, empanadas, flatbreads, a French dip and cheeseburgers. Its opening hours were Wednesday and Thursday until midnight and Friday and Saturday until 1 a.m.

So within a short walk, Cedar and Locust now have two cocktail rooms that opened four weeks apart, and both are set in historic spaces. Closer to Pacific on Locust, the daytime places are newer. UMe Tea & Snacks at 111 Locust held its grand opening September 5. It sells milk tea, matcha, fruit tea, chicken nuggets, fried tofu and curly fries, and the Sentinel listed its hours as noon to 8 p.m. daily. On the same block, Portside Supply sells streetwear and thrift: vintage denim, designer hoodies and Y2K pieces.

Walnut Avenue: three doors in a row

Walnut has the tightest cluster. Three side-by-side storefronts near the Downtown Farmers' Market all filled this year.

1. Hand It Down, 119 Walnut. A buy-sell-trade shop for children's clothing, newborn to age 10, founded by local mom Tori Koneya. The shop's site gives June 1 as the opening date for its downtown location.
2. Relic & Roots, 121 Walnut. Vintage finds, handmade goods and local artists' work, arranged in room-style displays. The Downtown Association held its ribbon-cutting August 21.
3. Tomato Tomato, 117 Walnut. A specialty food market that soft-opened in mid-October. The Sentinel reported spices, pasta, nut butters and sardines on the shelves. The cold case carries Pajaro Pastures eggs and ground beef, Fogline Farm chicken and ready-to-bake Companion Bakeshop pies, and bread and organic produce are coming soon. Hours at opening were 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., closed Tuesdays.

Tomato Tomato held its grand opening on Friday, October 23, according to Edible Monterey Bay. That makes it the ninth side-street opening of the year. It's also the one closest to everyday errands. Until now, Walnut's new shops were places to browse. Now the block has somewhere to pick up eggs and a pie for dinner.

What Pacific Avenue is still waiting on

Pacific has its own pipeline, but more of it is scheduled for later than has already opened. As of the Downtown Association's September roundup:

• The Burning Ember, an independent romance bookstore at 1128 Pacific, set its grand opening for October 30.
• Con Azucar Cafe, a Mexican-inspired coffee shop at 825 Pacific, was under construction.
• The Breakfast Club at Midtown and Campus Burgers, with its $1.99 smashburgers, were both listed as coming soon to 1108 Pacific.
• The Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History is renovating its permanent home and has a temporary Downtown Field Station at 1339 Pacific. The museum says the full retail and exhibits grand opening is planned for spring 2027.
• Bookie's Pizza signed the first retail lease at Anton Pacific, a 3,475-square-foot ground-floor space at 800 Pacific. Lookout reported in July that the move was expected next year, so 2027.

The Bookie's lease is the same story as Gran Gelato, one building over. A new ground floor that sat empty for years finally has a local food tenant. Gran Gelato went first, on Cedar, and Bookie's is about to do the same on Pacific.

Getting there while the library goes up

If you're heading to the Cedar Street end, plan around the downtown library and housing project. It fills the city lot bounded by Cathcart, Cedar and Lincoln. The Sentinel reported in late August that meters on Cathcart, Lincoln and Cedar are out of service and Lot 8 is partly closed for staging. Lincoln between Cedar and Pacific closes from time to time. Cedar and Cathcart were expected to stay open. Phase one is scheduled to finish by the end of 2027, and the whole project in summer 2028. When it's done, it will add a library of more than 41,000 square feet, 124 very-low-income homes and about 240 parking spaces.

That puts one more new ground floor and one more source of foot traffic on the block that already has Gran Gelato, Switch Bakery and The Alley Oop. Here's one evening that covers it: gelato on the Cedar-to-Center walkway, a market stop on Walnut before Tomato Tomato's 6 p.m. close, a drink upstairs at The Hotel, then a show at Kuumbwa with The Alley Oop next door afterward.

If you'd like to talk through how downtown Santa Cruz's side streets fit into your own plans, the team at EF Homes is glad to share what we're seeing on these blocks. Contact Us.