On a Saturday night in August, a courtyard off Dolores Street filled with people who were not, for once, tourists killing time before a hotel checkout. They were locals, gathered for the open house party for Mammone and Mama's Boy, the two concepts Anthony and Alissa Carnazzo are opening next to their original restaurant, the Stationæry. If you have eaten at the Stationæry's brunch counter, you already know the off-menu cinnamon rolls have their own following, the kind of thing regulars ask about by name. What the Carnazzos are building next door is meant for those same regulars, not for the crowds who line up on Ocean Avenue in July.
"We're building them for the people that live here," Alissa Carnazzo told the San Francisco Chronicle. "We're not building businesses that are dependent on tourists."
That sentence is the key to understanding what is actually happening in Carmel's restaurant scene right now, and it is not the story most write-ups are telling. The easy version says Carmel is having a culinary moment: new restaurants everywhere, a Michelin star here, a hyped Italian deli there. The more useful version, the one you can only see if you track who is opening where and who they are opening for, is that Carmel is running two separate experiments on the same handful of streets. One bets on the golfer coming off Pebble Beach with cash to spend on a $95 steak. The other bets on the neighbor who wants a sandwich before walking the dog to the beach. Both bets are being placed within blocks of each other, sometimes in the exact buildings that used to house the businesses their new owners are quietly displacing.
An Unusual Amount of Turnover for a Very Small Town
Carmel-by-the-Sea covers one square mile. In the past year, at least five new food and drink businesses have opened in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Carmel Valley, with at least four more prominent ones announced or under construction. For a town this size, that is an unusually high rate of openings, and the Chronicle's reporting ties it directly to a broader tension locals already feel: congested streets in peak season, contentious City Council meetings about tourism's toll, and lines outside small businesses that depend on visitor traffic to survive.
Here is what has opened, or is about to:
- Nora's, a comfort-food restaurant from the Nimri family (owners of Anton & Michel, Tree House Café, and Village Corner), soft-opened at the end of July 2025 in the space that had been Basil Seasonal Dining.
- Char Steakhouse, from Bashar Sneeh's Dametra Group, opened in late July 2026 in the former Cantinetta Luca space on Dolores Street, serving Certified Angus Beef Prime cuts including a $95 bone-in ribeye.
- Mammone and Mama's Boy, the Carnazzos' Sicilian restaurant and Italian deli, are moving through Carmel's planning process on Dolores Street between 4th and 5th, with weekend pop-ups already running in the space.
- Banju, a nostalgic brunch concept from Ashley Wolff of Jeju Kitchen, is slated to arrive by the end of 2026.
- The Corner Market, a 5,000-square-foot seafood restaurant from Aubergine's two-Michelin-star chef Justin Cogley, is under renovation in a former Junipero Street blacksmith shop, with an opening targeted for 2027.
Some of these are additions to the village. Others are direct replacements, occupying the exact storefronts that longtime restaurants vacated. That distinction matters more than the raw count.
Two Different Bets, One Street
Walk Dolores Street this fall and you can see both experiments running side by side. Char has positioned itself explicitly around Pebble Beach's golf traffic. Its own materials describe it as the ideal stop to unwind after a round on the greens, and the price point matches that audience: a 32-ounce Tomahawk ribeye, an extensive bourbon list, a dining room finished in stacked stone and arched doorways built for a special-occasion crowd that is, by definition, mostly visiting.
A few doors down, the Carnazzos are building the opposite model on purpose. Mama's Boy is designed as the kind of deli you stop into for a quick sandwich on your way somewhere else, not a destination. Mammone is meant to fill on weeknights with locals celebrating a birthday or grabbing a drink before walking to the beach, according to the Carnazzos' own description of their plans. Chef Amalia Scatena, who also runs the kitchen at the Stationæry, is building the menu around dishes like sea bream crudo with Meyer lemon and orecchiette with Monterey Bay squid, food meant to be eaten regularly rather than saved for an anniversary.
Nora's tells the same story from the other direction. When longtime restaurateur Faisal Nimri opened it in the space Basil Seasonal Dining had vacated, he was candid about why. "We have become a bit fancy," he said of Carmel's dining scene, adding that Nora's exists to fill a gap the fancier spots left behind. The menu runs to meatloaf, cioppino, and twice-baked potatoes at prices meant for a Tuesday, not a special occasion. The restaurant beat its own beer and wine license to open, turning the space around in just over two months because, in Nimri's words, people kept asking when it would reopen.
You will not find this split written into any zoning map. It shows up only if you compare who each new restaurant is actually built for, and once you see it, the rest of the wave reads differently.
Who Controls the Storefronts
Part of why this split is happening now traces back to who owns the real estate underneath it. Forge in the Forest closed in February 2025 after 53 years, not because business had dried up but because its landlord, Esperanza Carmel LLC, declined to extend the lease. Esperanza Carmel is controlled by Monaco billionaire Patrice Pastor, who has spent more than $100 million acquiring properties across the Peninsula, including the historic Rocky Point restaurant down the coast, where Justin Cogley is expected to eventually open another project of his own.
When a single owner controls a meaningful share of a one-square-mile village's commercial real estate, that owner's preferences about what kind of tenant belongs in a given storefront start to matter as much as market demand. A landlord chasing higher-margin, visitor-facing tenants will produce a different Main Street than one willing to renew a 53-year-old institution at a flat rate. Carmel's current wave is, in part, a visible record of those decisions playing out one lease at a time.
What Turned Over, and What Didn't
Tracking the specific handoffs makes the pattern concrete. Basil Seasonal Dining, which closed in April 2025 citing rising costs, became Nora's, a cheaper, more casual concept. Cantinetta Luca, which closed in September 2025 after nearly two decades serving Italian food, became Char, a considerably more expensive steakhouse. La Balena closed in January 2025 when its owners returned to Italy, and that space has not yet reopened with a clear new identity.
What is notable is what has not turned over at all. The 127-year-old Carmel Bakery, Village Corner California Bistro since 1948, Little Swiss Café since 1956, and Casanova since 1978 continue operating largely unchanged, insulated from the churn reshaping the blocks around them. These are the fixed points locals navigate by. Everything else on this list is currently in motion.
What This Means for Your Fall
If you already live here, the practical takeaway is timing. Nora's and Char are open now, so if you have been meaning to try either, this is the season with the shortest wait, before Monterey Jazz Festival weekend and the holiday season thicken the lines again. Mama's Boy and Mammone are still working through Carmel's planning process, so the pop-ups running in that Dolores Street courtyard on weekends are your preview until a firm opening date lands. Banju is a late-2026 story. The Corner Market is a 2027 one, worth knowing about now mostly so the eventual gut renovation on Junipero Street does not surprise you.
None of this needs to compete for your attention with the rest of what Carmel does well this time of year. The Thursday farmers market still runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. downtown. The Great Carmel Sandcastle Contest returns to Carmel Beach on September 19, marking the city's 110th year with a theme built around that milestone. If you want a rarer outing, painters Jennifer Perlmutter and Nicole Cromwell are opening their working studio to the public on September 12 in the Su Vecino Courtyard, a space they almost never unlock for visitors.
The restaurant wave is not something happening to Carmel. It is Carmel deciding, storefront by storefront, what kind of village it wants to be for the people who already call it home.
I've watched Carmel's storefronts turn over for more than three decades, and the pattern above is the clearest version of that story I've seen in years. If you're weighing a move within the village, or wondering what a shift like this means for property values on the blocks it touches, Susan Clark can walk you through it in person. Request Your VIP Listing Consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
