When did you last walk the 1100 to 1300 blocks of Orange Avenue after dark and recognize every sign? If it was a year ago, most of what you remember has changed. Between October 2025 and August 2026, five new dining rooms opened across four addresses near the Hotel del Coronado. Every one of them moved into a building that already had a long local history.
None of these openings is new construction on an empty lot. One replaced a 31-year-old pasta house. One took over a museum café. One rebuilt a second-floor space that had been dark since the pandemic. One put a hotel on a 1950s motel lot beside a restaurant building from 1938. Private operators have already spent heavily on this end of the avenue. The city's own streetscape work, meanwhile, is still waiting on Caltrans.
Four Addresses, Rebuilt in Sequence
| Address | Before | Now | Opened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1100 Orange Ave | L'Orangerie, the Coronado Historical Association café | La Corriente Cocina del Pacifico | October 2025 |
| 1202 Orange Ave | Island Pasta, 31 years | Double Standard | March 2026 |
| 1315 Orange Ave | La Avenida motel, pool and parking lot | Baby Grand, with Night Hawk and Fallen Empire | May 14, 2026 |
| 1300 Orange Ave | Boardwalk Beach Club, closed soon after the pandemic began | By The Sea | August 12, 2026 |
The two quick changeovers came first, at the 1100 and 1200 blocks. They were followed by the two slow rebuilds at the 1300 block, which had sat unfinished for years.
The Handoffs at 1100 and 1202
The first change was the least dramatic. In August 2025 the Coronado Times reported that La Corriente Cocina del Pacifico would take over the Coronado Historical Association's museum café at 1100 Orange, the space L'Orangerie had held. It opened around October with a Pacific Coast seafood menu of ceviches, aguachiles, oysters, soft-shell crab tacos and red snapper tostadas, plus a lineup of 20 salsas and sauces.
Two blocks south, Island Pasta served its final meals at the end of October 2025, after 31 years at 1202 Orange. Owner Carol Sarber had approached longtime Coronadan David Spatafore of Blue Bridge Hospitality about taking over the space. His first plan was to expand Village Pizzeria next door. Then he overheard people on the sidewalk asking for different food options, and he changed course.
That change became Double Standard, which opened in March 2026 with American Wagyu burgers on potato buns, fries made from Kennebec potatoes chosen after a couple of months of testing, and the return of the Leroy burger that longtime locals remember. The light fixtures stayed from Island Pasta. The planned neon signage, still in the city's design review in March, is meant to echo the historic Village Pizzeria sign beside it.
Both handoffs kept a well-known address busy. The blocks to the south had a much longer wait.
The Motel Lot That Took Six Years
The Baby Grand's address, 1315 Orange, carries the oldest story on the stretch. The hotel replaced the former La Avenida complex, and the La Avenida restaurant building at 1301 Orange dates to 1938, built by Albert Bram with designer-builder Walter A. Vestal. Bram's heirs ran the motel next door. By the time redevelopment started, the site was a 1950s-era motel, a pool and a large parking lot.
CH Projects, the San Diego group behind the Lafayette Hotel restoration, conceived the Baby Grand six years before it opened. The 31-room hotel opened on May 14, 2026, about a year later than planned. Its budget grew from roughly $17 million to $18 million. Co-founder Arsalun Tafazoli told the San Diego Union-Tribune that working with a city his team had never dealt with before was "a steep learning curve." For a sense of how rare this is on the island, The Bower, a 39-room boutique hotel also near the Hotel del, opened a year earlier as Coronado's first new lodging property in more than three decades.
The hotel has two places to eat and drink that are open to locals:
- Night Hawk is an all-outdoor Greek restaurant built around a custom wood-fired grill and oven, with rock-formed booths, skewers, lobster squid-ink linguini and a grand souvlaki platter. It opens at 11 a.m. on weekdays and serves weekend brunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Fallen Empire is a reservation-only oyster and Champagne bar hidden behind the lobby. It has red-mohair booths, a sea-life mosaic floor and a bar inspired by "The Raft of the Medusa." The menu covers Kumamoto oysters, uni tartare and grower Champagne. It is open 5 to 11 p.m. nightly.
The Second Floor Across the Street
Directly across the avenue, 1300 Orange has changed hands many times. Marie Callender's held the second-floor space in the 1980s. Vigilucci's and Maretalia followed. Most recently it was Boardwalk Beach Club, which opened shortly before the pandemic and closed soon after.
Doug and Lara Hamm of Black Swan Hospitality, the group behind Nolita Hall, moved to Coronado in 2021. They have said walkability and friendships on the island are part of why the address appealed to them. Their renovation was estimated at $3 million and ended near $6 million over four years, because the roof, HVAC, kitchen, windows, doors and nearly every surface needed replacing.
The Hamms described their goal as a place that feels like vacation, where guests can relax, linger and settle in with inviting food and drinks.
By The Sea opened August 12 with 6,500 square feet and 245 seats inside and out. San Diego Magazine describes a 24-seat travertine bar, floor-to-ceiling glass pocket doors, an outdoor fireplace and a peekaboo water view. The Mediterranean menu runs from scallop crudo and octopus with crispy potatoes to linguine and clams, grilled branzino and a seafood tower sized for two to six guests. Dinner service starts at 4 p.m. and the restaurant is closed Tuesdays. The two local write-ups list slightly different daily hours, and brunch is still being planned, so check before planning a weekend morning around it.
Together, these two 1300-block projects represent about $24 million in reported spending on two parcels facing each other across the avenue, and both ran over their original budgets.
The Street Itself Comes Later
The avenue these restaurants face has not changed yet. The city chose a phased Orange Avenue beautification plan in 2024 and returned to it in April 2026 for more design funding. Phase 1 brings standardized benches, trash and recycling cans, bike racks and tree grates to the length of Orange Avenue, which includes these blocks. On April 21, the council unanimously approved a $458,363 amended task order for continued design. It set a target of the first quarter of 2027 for Phase 1 construction, with Caltrans review, an encroachment permit and a maintenance agreement still required. Phase 2, the heavier work on sidewalks, lighting and irrigation, was targeted for the 800 block no earlier than January 2028. The most recent schedule in local reporting dates from that April meeting, so treat those dates as targets.
That leaves the order of events clear. The private rebuilds on these four addresses are finished and serving. The public upgrade to the sidewalk in front of them starts with street furniture sometime next year.
Using the New Blocks This Fall
With the openings spread across the day, it is now possible to spend a whole day on this stretch:
- Midday: Double Standard for burgers and onion rings, or La Corriente for ceviche at the museum café.
- Weekend brunch: Night Hawk, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., entirely outdoors.
- Late afternoon: By The Sea's bar from 4 p.m., except Tuesdays.
- Late evening: Fallen Empire until 11 p.m., with a reservation.
The next chance to sample many island kitchens in one evening is A Taste of Coronado. The Coronado Times lists it for Wednesday, October 7, and Discover Coronado lists October 8, so confirm the date before you buy tickets. The new 92118 Collective app, which gathers local events and businesses in one place, is scheduled to launch at the event. Farther north, Maiden Coronado was under construction at the Ferry Landing when SanDiegoVille reported in January that it planned to open in early 2027.
A Note From Our Team
At Dennis Bragg, we follow Coronado address by address, much as this stretch of Orange Avenue rebuilt itself: what a building was, what it cost to bring back, and what changes on the street around it. If you own a home on the island and want to know how blocks like these fit into its value, we're glad to talk it through. Get Your Home Valuation, and we'll give you a clear, property-level read without any pressure.
