Walk down Main Street this week and you'll pass a Habit Burger Grill that didn't exist three months ago, then the second location of a Newport Beach diner that opened this spring at Steve Daniel Plaza, right where an IHOP used to sit. Keep walking to the end of the pier and you'll pass the same shuttered stand that's been empty since the city closed Let's Go Fishing years ago, still waiting on the restaurant that was supposed to open there in May 2022.
That gap isn't a coincidence, and it isn't really about permits either, at least not in the way most people assume. A national chain and a family-owned diner both went from announcement to open doors in about four months this year. The pier project, led by a former Huntington Beach mayor, has taken four years and still isn't finished. The reason has less to do with who's building and more to do with what kind of ground they're building on.
Two Openings, Four Months Apart
The Habit Burger Grill's new location at 8965 Atlanta Ave opened to the public on Monday, May 4, and the company marked the launch with a free Charburger Day for the first 200 guests two days earlier. It's Habit's newest Southern California location, dine-in and takeout on site, delivery through the usual apps.
Down the street, Champagnes Kitchen opened its second location at 200 Main Street this spring, taking over the former IHOP space at Steve Daniel Plaza on the first-week-of-May timeline owners Matt and Winnona Tobey had targeted. The Tobeys, who rebranded the original Newport Beach spot during the pandemic in 2020, carried over the counter-service breakfast and lunch, full-service dinner, and six-seat liquor bar that built the Newport location's following since 1989.
Neither business waited on a city council vote. Both signed private commercial leases, pulled standard permits, built out their spaces, and opened on a normal restaurant timeline. That's the baseline worth holding onto, because it's exactly what the pier project didn't get.
The Pier Runs on a Different Clock
The restaurant slated for the end of the Huntington Beach Pier is a public tidelands lease, and that changes everything about how it moves. Former mayor Keith Bohr, working with architect Jeff Bergsma, has been trying to get "Huntington's On The Pier" built at 21 Main Street since the city council backed his proposal over a competing bid from Ruby's Diner back in 2021. The restaurant was supposed to open in May 2022. Bohr has said the delay came from working through three state agencies, the OC Health Department, and multiple city departments at once, a process a private commercial tenant simply doesn't face.
In January of this year, Bohr came back to the council for a $1.3 million bond, meant to protect the city if the project falls through. Mayor Casey McKeon and council members Gracey Van Der Mark, Pat Burns, and Butch Twining approved it, but not without pushback. Councilman Chad Williams argued the city hadn't even used fifteen months of rent abatement to get the restaurant built, and that Bohr may have violated his own contract by waiting too long.
"We might be executing a term on a contract that might be in default."
That's Williams, speaking at the January 20 meeting, and he had a number to back it up: since 2021, the city has collected roughly $6,500 in revenue from one of its most valuable pieces of real estate. Under the lease terms, the city gets $5,500 a month in base rent unless the restaurant clears $2 million a year, at which point a revenue share kicks in. If Bohr exercises every extension available to him, the lease runs for close to fifty years.
Compare that structure to what Habit or Champagnes signed. A private landlord sets rent, a tenant builds out, and nobody needs a council majority to approve a bond or debate whether a rent abatement clause was used correctly. The pier isn't slow because of red tape in the abstract. It's slow because it's public land governed by a lease built for a fifty-year horizon, with a bond and a revenue trigger baked in from the start, and that kind of instrument moves at government speed no matter who's holding it.
What's Actually Coming to the Pier
Assuming construction proceeds on the current timeline, Bohr's website for the project lists a Fall 2026 completion, which would put the opening more than four years past the original target. The plans call for a 250-square-foot kitchen addition, two outdoor patios totaling 630 square feet, and an expanded public restroom facility. The interior is designed for roughly 50 guests with open-air windows facing the ocean, plus a climate-controlled patio seating 25 and a smaller space near the restrooms for another 10.
The menu Bohr has described is built around tacos, burgers, seafood, salads, and desserts, with a bar program covering craft cocktails, California wines, and a rotating draft list of IPAs and Mexican pilsners. It's a straightforward coastal casual concept, the kind of place meant for a family stopping midway down the pier rather than a destination restaurant requiring a reservation.
The Calendar That Doesn't Wait on Permits
While the pier project works through its own timeline, the rest of the summer calendar in Huntington Beach hasn't paused for it. A few dates worth knowing if you're already living here:
- Old World Village's Bier Fest runs August 8 through 16 at 7561 Center Ave, with German-style food, imported beer, and live music across two weekends. A 5oz souvenir mug with five tastings runs $25, and table reservations start at $100 for groups of six to eight.
- Surfin' Sundays returns to Pier Plaza August 22 and 23, hosted by the Huntington Beach Surfing Museum. It's free, runs roughly 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the Surf City Marketplace sets up vendors starting at 9 a.m. Live instrumental surf music is scheduled for Sunday.
- The U.S. Beach Wrestling Nationals land in Huntington Beach on Saturday, August 15, marking the West Coast's turn to host after last year's event ran in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. Competitors weigh in the night before at Zack's By The Beach on Pacific Coast Highway, with competition running across 11 age divisions from 8-and-under through Masters.
Further out, Old World Village's Oktoberfest begins September 6 and runs through November 8, and the Pacific Airshow returns to the coastline October 2 through 4. Both are worth putting on the calendar now, before the weekends fill up.
What This Actually Tells You
None of this is really about restaurants. It's about the difference between land you can lease on a normal timeline and land the city has to protect with a bond, a revenue trigger, and a council vote every time the lease terms come into question. The next time someone tells you the pier restaurant is "almost done," you'll know what that phrase is actually carrying: not a construction delay, but a public contract working through the only speed it's built to move at.
If you're weighing what any of this means for property near the pier, or you're curious how public leaseholds and coastal commercial corridors factor into value up and down this stretch of Orange County, the team at Arbor Real Estate spends a lot of time thinking about exactly these questions. Let's Connect.
