Walk to the end of the pier this month and the old bait-and-tackle stand at 21 Main Street finally looks like something. The plywood is still up, but the site banner has changed. It now reads "currently under construction" with a completion target of fall 2026, according to Huntington's on the Pier's own project page. For a spot that has sat empty since the city closed the Let's Go Fishing stand years ago, that sentence is news.
It is also, if you have been paying attention to Huntington Beach's last five years, a little funny. Because while the most recognizable storefront in Surf City sat behind plywood, the rest of downtown and the neighborhoods around it kept moving without asking anyone's permission. That gap between the frozen postcard and the moving neighborhood is the actual story here, and it tells you something true about how this city works.
Four Years, One Bond, and a $6,500 Question
The short version: in 2021, city staff and several committees recommended Ruby's Diner take over the pier-end stand. The city council of that era overrode them and asked former Mayor Keith Bohr to build something new instead. The restaurant, later named Huntington's on the Pier, was originally set to open in May 2022.
It didn't. Bohr has attributed the delay to permitting that ran through three state agencies plus the county, saying his team had to work through "three state agencies, OC Health Department and all the various City Departments," according to Voice of OC's reporting. By January 2026, the city council was still debating the project. Councilman Butch Twining pushed for the city to stop holding things up, saying at the January 20 meeting that he wanted Bohr to "get going so he can open up by the end of summer hopefully." Councilman Chad Williams pushed back the other direction, pointing out that "the only revenue our city has received since 2021 is about $6,500."
The council approved a $1.3 million bond anyway, meant to protect the city if the project falls through. Seven months later, the project's own site says construction is finally active. That is the update most residents have been waiting on without realizing it, since the plywood at the pier has become such standard scenery that it stopped registering as a story.
What Opened While the Sign Still Said "Coming Soon"
Here is the part that puts the pier's timeline in perspective. In the same stretch of months that Huntington's on the Pier moved from "under review" to "under construction," a handful of much smaller projects opened, launched, and moved on to their next phase without a single council hearing.
Habit Burger opened its new location at 8965 Atlanta Avenue on May 4, 2026, after giving away free Charburgers to the first 200 guests at a pre-opening event two days earlier, according to QSR Magazine's coverage of the opening. Over at Bella Terra, the lifestyle center on Edinger Avenue added Bacio di Latte, an artisanal gelato shop opening next to Philz Coffee in late July, with The NOW Massage set to follow in October at 7777 Edinger, per What Now OC's reporting on the additions.
Line the timelines up and the contrast is stark:
| Project | Where things stood in early 2026 | Status now (August 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Huntington's on the Pier | Awaiting a bond and stalled permits | Under construction, targeting fall 2026 |
| Habit Burger, Atlanta Ave | Announced | Open since May 4 |
| Bacio di Latte, Bella Terra | Announced | Open late July |
| The NOW Massage, Bella Terra | Announced | Opening October |
Three retail projects went from announcement to open doors faster than one restaurant went from bond approval to a poured foundation.
Why the Postcard Moves Slower Than the Strip Mall
This isn't really a story about one contractor or one council vote. It's a story about which piece of land a business sits on.
Bella Terra's new tenants are leasing finished commercial suites inside a private shopping center. Getting a gelato counter or a massage studio open mostly means a tenant improvement permit and a health inspection. Habit Burger's Atlanta Avenue building is a standard commercial parcel zoned for exactly this use.
The pier is different. It's city-owned public property at the end of a municipal structure, built out under a formal lease agreement rather than a standard commercial permit, which means construction there answers to layers Bella Terra never has to touch. Bohr has said his team had to work through three state agencies, the county health department, and multiple city departments just to get to a groundbreaking. A gelato shop needs a landlord's sign-off. A restaurant built over the ocean needs sign-off from bodies that don't care how long the plywood has been up.
That's worth knowing if you've ever wondered why the flashiest project in town seems to move the slowest. It isn't incompetence on any one person's part. It's that the pier plays by a different rulebook than everything built on dry, privately owned land around it, and that rulebook doesn't move at retail speed no matter who's asking.
The Calendar That Doesn't Need a Permit
None of this means downtown has been quiet while it waits. If anything, the last few months prove the opposite: the things that keep Huntington Beach feeling like Huntington Beach don't run through the same approval chain as a pier restaurant, so they haven't been stuck at all.
What's actually running right now:
- Surf City Nights, every Tuesday from 4:30 to 8:30pm, closes three blocks of Main Street between Pacific Coast Highway and Orange Avenue for the city's only certified farmers market, live music, and a rotating list of vendors, per Downtown Huntington Beach's event page.
- The Surf City Artisan Street Fair at the pier, running select weekends for the rest of the year with local artists, musicians, and food vendors.
- Surfin' Sundays at Pier Plaza, hosted by the Huntington Beach Surfing Museum, drawing a marketplace of vendors and live surf music on select Sunday mornings and afternoons.
- The tail end of the Lexus US Open of Surfing, which brought professional heats, live music, and beach games back to the sand south of the pier for its annual run.
None of these needed a coastal permit or a city bond. They needed a street closure and a calendar, which is exactly why they've been reliable all summer while the one thing everybody keeps asking about has not.
The Pier Will Get Its Restaurant. The Neighborhood Already Moved On
Huntington's on the Pier will open, probably close to the fall 2026 date on its own site, and when it does it will likely be worth the wait. Bohr has described a menu of California coastal casual food with ocean views on three sides, which is hard to argue with once the doors are actually open.
Until then, the useful thing to understand isn't when the sign comes down. It's that Huntington Beach's pace of change was never really tied to that one storefront in the first place. A gelato counter, a burger chain, and a Tuesday night farmers market all moved faster because they were never waiting on the same approvals. If you've been holding your plans for a walk to the end of the pier hostage to a construction timeline, you can stop. Everything else in town already stopped waiting months ago.
If watching how this city actually moves, project by project, block by block, has you thinking about your own next move here, that's a different conversation. 1% Listing Broker works this exact stretch of coast and knows which projects are worth waiting on and which timelines are worth ignoring. Get your free 1% home valuation whenever you're ready to see what your Huntington Beach property is actually worth.
