Walk down Ocean Drive toward the pier on any weekend this month and you will hit orange cones before you hit the sand. That is not new. What is worth knowing, if you live within walking distance of downtown, is which block those cones actually belong to, because it is not the whole neighborhood, and the rumor that circulates every July, that downtown effectively closes for two weeks, does not hold up against the city's own closure maps.
Manhattan Beach runs two beach volleyball events back to back every August, and locals tend to fold them into one long inconvenience. They are not the same event, they do not close the same streets, and understanding the difference is the whole trick to still getting a coffee, a parking spot, or a seat at one of the new restaurants without losing a Saturday to detours.
Two Tournaments, Two Different Footprints
The Charlie Saikley 6-Man Tournament just wrapped. Founded in 1974 by Charlie Saikley, known locally as the Godfather of Beach Volleyball, the tournament plays out on the sand just south of the pier and mixes serious volleyball with team costumes, a format that has stayed close to Saikley's original vision even as his family now co-runs it with the city's Parks and Recreation Department. Games ran August 1 and 2 this year, with the Jr. 6-Man division following on August 2 for players 14 and under.
The bigger event is still ahead. The Manhattan Beach Open by AVP starts with a Walk of Fame Ceremony on the pier on August 13, then runs its main draw August 14 through 16. This is the tournament people mean when they say "the granddaddy of them all." It started in 1960 as an amateur event and has been part of the AVP tour since 1984. Every champion gets a bronze volleyball plaque bolted to the pier itself. Kathy Gregory holds the women's record with seven plaques. Karch Kiraly holds the men's record with ten.
Different founding years, different formats, different footprints on the ground. Saikley is a weekend. MBO's three days of play sit inside a ten-day street closure, August 10 through August 19, which means seven of those ten days are pure setup and teardown with no volleyball happening at all.
The Block That Closes Twice
Here is the part that actually matters if you live nearby, and it is happening right now. Ocean Drive between 11th and 12th Streets closed on July 31 for Saikley grandstand construction, and as of this week it is still closed. The city's own closure schedule has that block reopening the evening of August 6, four days after the last Saikley match on August 2. That gap between the final point and the street reopening is teardown time, not tournament time, and it runs longer than most people expect.
The same block closes again on August 14, this time for MBO, and stays closed through August 16. In between those two closures it gets about a week of normal use, from the evening of August 6 through August 13, which is short enough that plenty of residents will miss the window entirely before it shuts a second time.
The one stretch of Ocean Drive between 11th and 12th does more closing than the volleyball itself does playing.
Separately, the wider approach to the pier along Manhattan Beach Boulevard, from Ocean Drive down to the sand, closes for a longer window tied to MBO, roughly August 10 through August 19, to allow for full stadium court construction and breakdown. That closure is real, but it is confined to the last two blocks before the water. Everything else downtown, Highland Avenue, Manhattan Avenue, the shops and restaurants a block or two inland, keeps running on a normal schedule the entire time.
Everything Else Stays Open, Including What's New
That distinction matters more this month than most, because downtown's restaurant lineup is genuinely turning over right now, and none of it sits inside the closure zone.
On Manhattan Avenue, the space that used to hold Nando Trattoria is becoming Coucou, a French bistro concept with locations already running in Venice and West Hollywood, expected to lean into steak frites, oysters, and an aperitif hour. A few doors down, the former Altamura Café space is turning into Peacock Café, a daytime concept built around coffee and casual breakfast and lunch. On the retail side, Beyond Yoga is taking over the space that Gum Tree occupied for years, and Gum Tree itself is not disappearing, it is relocating to a smaller nearby storefront after losing its previous lease, keeping the same mix of home goods and gifts that made it a fixture.
None of that turnover sits on Ocean Drive between 11th and 12th, and none of it sits on the Manhattan Beach Boulevard stretch closing for MBO setup. You can walk to any of it in August exactly as easily as you could in April.
The standing anchors around downtown are not going anywhere either, and if the new spots have a wait while they find their footing, these are the reliable fallback:
- Love & Salt on Manhattan Beach Boulevard, a decade-old anchor for pizza and pasta a short walk from the pier, named to the 2025 Michelin Guide USA.
- The Arthur J on Manhattan Avenue, a mid-century steakhouse cooking over live white oak embers.
- Manhattan Beach Post on Manhattan Avenue, the restaurant that built out chef David LeFevre's presence in town.
- Fishing with Dynamite, also LeFevre's, an oyster bar a few doors from Manhattan Beach Post.
- The Strand House, perched above the sand with a lounge below it, still running on chef Chris Park's seasonal, market-driven menu.
Getting Around Without Losing the Day to Parking
If you would rather skip the parking math entirely during either event, the city launched a new option this summer. Wave Rider, an on-demand electric microtransit service, began limited runs on June 4 and moved to full service on June 9, connecting the Metro K Line to the beach through the Circuit app. It is the first summer this kind of car-free hop between a transit stop and downtown has existed in Manhattan Beach at all, which changes the math for anyone who has always driven in and circled for a spot near the pier lots.
If you do want to park, the city's lot map lays out all twelve public lots and where their entrances sit relative to the closures. The Upper Pier Lots enter off Ocean Drive and include EV charging, the Lower Pier Lots enter at the foot of Manhattan Beach Boulevard, and Lots 6, 7, and 8 sit further back on Highland Avenue, Valley Drive, and Ardmore Avenue respectively, all outside the event footprint and untouched by either tournament's closures.
The Actual Story This Month
The reputation volleyball season has around here is bigger than the reality. One block does almost all the closing, twice, with a week of normal traffic squeezed in between, while a genuinely new stretch of restaurants and shops two doors over never loses a single day of foot traffic. If you have been avoiding downtown altogether because you assumed the whole thing shuts down through the middle of August, the map says otherwise. Go try Coucou. Walk past the Walk of Fame plaques on your way. The block that matters is smaller than the story about it.
Downtown's steady turnover, from Coucou's arrival to Gum Tree's move, is also the kind of quiet signal that shapes where buyers want to be a few years from now. If you are curious what that means for a specific property near downtown, whether you are weighing a sale or just want a clear-eyed read on where values are heading, Lisa B Realty can walk through it with you. Get My Valuation to start that conversation.
