Your Manhattan Beach August: Polliwog Sundays, New Openings, and an East-Side Rhythm

For years, a Manhattan Beach summer had one center of gravity. The pier, the Strand, a slow walk down Manhattan Avenue at dusk. That version is still here, and it still works. What has changed this year is that a second rhythm has settled in on the east side of the city, and August is the month it becomes hard to miss.

The clearest way to see it: from Manhattan Heights or the streets around Meadows, an entire Sunday evening now unfolds without a car and without the pier. A late brunch, a lake loop, a picnic under the amphitheater bowl, a walk home in the light. The pieces have been arriving for a few years. This summer, they finally line up.

Here is a resident-level read on what to do with the last four Sundays of the concert series, which openings actually matter to a weekly routine, and where the anchors still hold their ground.

The Sunday That Made the Case

Concerts in the Park at Polliwog is the closest thing East MB has to a town square. Concerts in the Park returns to Polliwog Park for the 2026 season, bringing free live music every Sunday from July 5 through September 6, from 5 to 7 PM, presented by Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation in partnership with the City of Manhattan Beach and sponsored by Chevron. Ten bands across the summer, no ticket, no reservation, one amphitheater bowl at 1601 Manhattan Beach Blvd.

If you have been coming for years, skip to the lineup. If you are new, the etiquette is the practical part. The event is held on Sundays from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM; bring blankets, lawn chairs, and picnics; seating is first come, first served; early arrival to obtain prime lawn seating is encouraged. A low chair keeps you welcome behind the front rows. Eat before you go or bring the food with you. The picnic culture is the point.

The August roster, so you can plan the Sundays that matter:

The 2026 lineup includes The Satin Dollz, Las Chikas, The Amplified, Elton: The Early Years, Jimmy's Buffet, Cobra Cowboy, Gypsy Dreams, The Police Academy, Stone Soul, and ABBA LA. A useful detail for parking: parking can be difficult around the park during the concert series, carpooling and walking are encouraged, and handicap parking is at Begg Pool with a rideshare pick-up and drop-off area on Manhattan Beach Boulevard.

Two Rooms That Changed the Sepulveda Corridor

For a long time, the honest read on Manhattan Village was that it was a mall with a good grocery store. Two openings this year have moved it in a different direction, and both are within a short walk of Polliwog.

The first is Saint & Second. The modern American restaurant from Hofman Hospitality Group opened its new location in Manhattan Village on July 21, bringing its blend of American cuisine to the South Bay for the first time alongside its existing Long Beach and Topanga locations, at 3160 N Sepulveda Blvd, Suite S100. The address matters more than the menu language. This is the first restaurant of its scale to plant on the east side of Sepulveda and treat the neighborhood as its primary crowd rather than a spillover from downtown.

The second is Great White at Metlox. The laid-back Aussie café from Venice is taking the former Pitfire Pizza space at Metlox, known for beachy grain bowls, fish tacos, and fresh seasonal dishes; Metlox has been waiting for a daytime tenant that isn't a coffee shop, and Great White fits the courtyard better than what came before. For reference on what to expect, the Brentwood location leans on seasonal dishes, coffee, smoothies, signature breakfast items, salads, bowls, sandwiches, and wood-fired pizzas, open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., with breakfast served until 3 p.m. and items such as smoothie bowls, ricotta hotcakes, and breakfast burritos. A brunch that runs to 3 is the small mechanic that lets a lazy Sunday still make the 5 PM downbeat.

Downtown Still Moves, but Differently

The west side has not gone quiet. It has become more layered. Three arrivals are worth naming.

Coucou is the opening most downtown regulars are watching. Hayley and Jesse Feldman's intimate French bistro, which opened in Venice in 2023 and added a West Hollywood outpost a year later, now has a third location in the South Bay a block from the Manhattan Beach Pier, celebrating aperitif culture with dishes like hamachi ceviche with coconut milk, l'haute dog, steak frites, and soft serve sundae, paired with an ice-cold martini or specialty cocktails. The address is 1131 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, in the room that used to be Nando Trattoria. Coucou is not a soft opening in a niche corner of the city. It slots directly into the highest-visibility block downtown and treats the aperitif hour with real intent.

Bread Head sits a block up. At 1116 Manhattan Avenue in the former Tacolicious space, it is known for focaccia sandwiches layered with high-quality meats, cheeses, and flavor-packed spreads. A sandwich shop of this pedigree in that address changes the daytime map for anyone who works from home within walking distance of the pier.

Kafe by Petros is the quieter arrival and possibly the most useful one for locals. The team behind Petros has a new casual daytime cafe on Sunset Boulevard called Kafe, serving Greek breakfasts and lunches with pita sandwiches, omelets, steak skewers, pulled lamb sandwiches, a very flaky-looking bougatsa, and Greek coffee drinks like freddo cappuccinos. A daytime Greek room from a serious operator is a category the city has not had.

What the Anchors Still Do

None of this displaces the top of the field. It clarifies where each room sits.

Fishing With Dynamite at 1148 Manhattan Avenue remains the room the city measures itself against; chef David LeFevre's oyster bar and coastal seafood spot is listed in the 2025 Michelin Guide USA and has earned multiple appearances on OpenTable's 100 Best Restaurants in America. It is the reference point for what Manhattan Beach expects at the top end.

The Arthur J at 903 Manhattan Ave holds the special-occasion slot, with every steak cooked over a live wood fire grill using white oak embers, a selection of USDA Prime, True Japanese Wagyu, and Black Angus beef, plus the mid-century modern room, the martini program, and the Emmental popovers with strawberry butter.

Love & Salt at 317 Manhattan Beach Blvd stays the reliable pizza-and-pasta anchor, and chef Chris Feldmeier, known from Nancy Silverton's Osteria Mozza in Hollywood, is back running the kitchen. The Feldmeier return is the sleeper detail on the west side this year and reason enough to book the room again if the last visit blurred together with the block.

The Pattern Behind the Names

A restaurant list is not a thesis. The pattern behind it is. Manhattan Beach, traditionally known for more conservative upscale dining, is taking meaningful risks in the current cycle; the newer openings reflect a demographic shift toward a crowd that is younger, more food-curious, and willing to support chef-driven concepts, from Persian food and inventive tacos to Michelin-pedigreed sandwiches and French aperitif culture.

The geography inside that shift is the local read. Two of the summer's four most consequential openings sit east of Sepulveda or at Metlox, which historically has functioned as a seam between the two halves of the city rather than a destination in itself. The other two sit on the same two blocks of Manhattan Avenue where the city has always concentrated its highest-visibility dining. What is new is that both maps are active on the same Sunday.

A Template for the Last Four Sundays

A workable template for August, if you live within a mile of Polliwog:

1. Late brunch at Saint & Second or a bowl at Great White, both walkable from most streets east of Sepulveda.
2. A mid-afternoon lake loop at Polliwog, timed so kids are done before the amphitheater fills.
3. Chair down by 4:30, close enough to the bowl to hear the horns without leaning in.
4. Stay through set two. Walk home in the light.

Steps one through four never require a car and never require the pier. That is the sentence worth sitting with. For years, the answer to "what did you do Sunday" in Manhattan Beach involved the Strand and a table downtown. This August, an entire evening's worth of texture lives east of Sepulveda, and the west side is left to do what it does best when it is not asked to carry the whole city.

If your household is thinking about how a Manhattan Beach property fits your life over the next decade rather than the next quarter, the team at The Di Prizito Group is glad to talk through neighborhoods, blocks, and the practical rhythms that separate one part of the city from another. Contact us when you are ready.