Manhattan Beach Open Weekend 2026: A Local's Playbook for August 13–16

If you have lived here more than one summer, you already know the tourists get the calendar wrong. They come Sunday for the finals and think they have seen the Manhattan Beach Open. The people who actually live west of Sepulveda have been rearranging their week since the Monday before, when the first barricades go up on Manhattan Beach Boulevard and the Pier stops functioning as a normal Pier.

That is the shift worth internalizing this year. The AVP Manhattan Beach Open is a three-day tournament wrapped inside a nine-day footprint, and the residents who enjoy it most treat Thursday afternoon, not Sunday's championship match, as the real start of the weekend.

The Nine-Day Footprint

The tournament itself runs August 13 through 16, but the closures around the Pier begin days earlier and stretch days later. According to the City of Manhattan Beach, the relevant windows this year are:

• Manhattan Beach Boulevard west of Ocean Drive to the Pier: closed August 10 through 19
• Manhattan Beach Boulevard west of Manhattan Avenue to the Pier: closed August 14 through 16
• Ocean Drive between 11th Street and 12th Street: closed August 14 through 16

If your usual walk to coffee cuts down MBB toward the sand, plan a Highland Avenue detour starting Monday the 10th. If you drop kids at surf lessons near the Pier, the last clean drop-off morning is Sunday the 9th. This is the part of the week that catches new residents off guard. The tournament is a weekend event, and the disruption is not.

Thursday Is the Move

The overlooked date on the schedule is Thursday, August 13. At 3:30 PM the AVP holds the Walk of Fame Ceremony on the Pier, where that year's honorees get their plaques set into the concrete alongside legends going back to the tournament's founding in 1960. The city confirms the ceremony time; the AVP describes the event as "synonymous with the word 'iconic'" in beach volleyball and calls it "The Granddaddy of them all."

Thursday afternoon is the version of this weekend most out-of-town visitors miss. The Pier is decorated but not yet packed. You can actually get close to the players. The bars downtown are running staff meetings and prep menus, not full covers. If you have never made time for the ceremony, this is the year to walk down.

How the Match Days Actually Run

The city has published start times for the main draw. Plan your morning around them, not around when you think a beach tournament starts.

General admission is free, and seating is on a first come, first served basis. The practical read on that: if you want a shaded grandstand spot on Saturday, you are arriving before 8:00 AM. If you are happy with a berm view and a beach chair on the sand outside the ticketed zones, you can drift in at 10:00 and still see quality volleyball. All bags are subject to search, and beach chairs, umbrellas, and coolers are not permitted in ticketed areas or the general admission grandstands.

The field itself is worth the trip this year. The 2025 women's champions Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes' successors, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, are 2024 Paris Olympians and the 2025 Manhattan Beach Open champions returning to defend on home sand.

Where To Eat Around It

The dining logic on tournament weekend is inverted from a normal Saturday. Downtown is chaos from noon to 8:00 PM. The people who eat well this weekend book early breakfasts, late lunches, or 9:00 PM dinners, and they lean on the newer openings that the crowd has not fully absorbed yet.

Bread Head, 1116 Manhattan Avenue. In the former Tacolicious space, Bread Head builds focaccia sandwiches with high-quality meats, cheeses, and spreads. This is the sandwich to grab at 10:30 AM on Friday and carry to the sand. Two blocks from the Pier, fast in and out, and it eats well on a towel.

Great White, 401 Manhattan Beach Blvd. The all-day Aussie café from Venice took over the former Pitfire Pizza space at Metlox. Grain bowls, fish tacos, and fresh seasonal dishes in a courtyard setting that is far enough east of the closure line to still function normally on match days. Best call for a mid-afternoon reset when the Pier crowd has drained your patience.

Love & Salt, 317 Manhattan Beach Blvd. A decade-old anchor a few blocks off the sand. Chef Chris Feldmeier, known from Nancy Silverton's Osteria Mozza in Hollywood, is back running the kitchen, which signals a new chapter worth revisiting. Book the 8:45 or 9:00 PM slot on Saturday. The finals-eve crowd has cleared, the kitchen has hit its rhythm, and you can actually hear the person across the table.

The Arthur J, 903 Manhattan Ave. If Sunday's finals crown a hometown favorite and you want to make an evening of it, this is the room. Every steak is cooked over a live wood fire grill using white oak embers, with a selection of USDA Prime, True Japanese Wagyu, and Black Angus beef, and the mid-century modern room, martini program, and Emmental popovers with strawberry butter make it the top choice for a special occasion dinner in the South Bay. Reservations for the Sunday of MBO weekend need to already be on your calendar.

Fishing with Dynamite, 1148 Manhattan Ave. The reference point. Consistently the best-reviewed restaurant in Manhattan Beach, the oyster bar and coastal seafood spot chef David LeFevre built into a local institution, listed in the 2025 Michelin Guide USA with multiple appearances on OpenTable's 100 Best Restaurants in America. The counter turns fast if you eat at 5:00 PM before the tournament's evening buzz peaks.

And keep an eye on Coucou, the French bistro concept from Venice and West Hollywood moving into the former Nando Trattoria space on Manhattan Avenue. If it opens in time, expect steak frites, oysters, and the aperitif culture the downtown stretch has been missing.

The Sunday Night Alternative

Here is the piece almost nobody plans for. Sunday, August 16 is not only finals day. It is also a Concerts in the Park night at Polliwog Park, 1601 Manhattan Beach Boulevard. The city's free summer concert series runs every Sunday in August, and August 16 falls squarely in the run.

If the Pier crowd is not your idea of a Sunday evening, the play is to catch the semifinal on the sand, walk back to your car by 3:00, and drift over to Polliwog with a blanket around 5:00. Low chairs only. Show up earlier than you think you need to for a spot near the amphitheater bowl. It is the quietest way to end MBO weekend without actually leaving town.

Getting In and Out

The AVP is explicit on this one. There is no dedicated event parking, and everyone is encouraged to use public parking throughout Manhattan Beach and consider carpooling or ridesharing. Which is another way of saying: do not drive.

Practical calls if you live west of Sepulveda:

1. Bike. The city maintains bike parking downtown, and the Strand path routes around the closure zone cleanly from both directions.
2. Walk from home if you are within a mile. On Saturday the last quarter mile by car will take longer than the walk from Sand Section anyway.
3. If someone is dropping you, the reliable curb this year is Highland Avenue north of 15th Street or Valley Drive east of the Green Belt. Anything closer to the sand becomes a slow loop.

Residents in the Tree Section and East Manhattan face less friction than Sand Section neighbors during closure days, but everyone west of Sepulveda should expect that a Saturday grocery run takes longer than usual. Ralphs at Manhattan Village stays clear; downtown Trader Joe's on Sepulveda does not.

The One Thing To Put On the Calendar Right Now

If you take one date from this piece, it is Thursday, August 13 at 3:30 PM. Walk down to the Pier for the ceremony. Skip the finals if you have to. The Walk of Fame is where the tournament actually connects to its history, and the crowd is small enough that you can still feel like this is your Pier and your event, not just a broadcast set built on your street.

Planning a move to Manhattan Beach and want a sharper read on what living around events like this actually feels like block by block? The team at Accardo Real Estate Associates has spent the last two decades helping South Bay clients weigh those trade-offs. Reach out to request a complimentary market consultation.