What's New in Corona del Mar Village This Summer

If you have lived in the Village for more than a season or two, you already know the rhythm: Baroque concerts in late June, the Scenic 5K on the bluffs, and a slow drift toward the Christmas Walk. What makes summer 2026 different is that the Village's cultural anchor is under scaffolding, two of its longtime restaurants are operating under new hands, and the calendar you have memorized is quietly resetting. This is a bookmark summer. Here is what to notice while it is still in front of you.

The Sherman Year to Pay Attention To

Sherman Library & Gardens is 60 this year, and it is also, for the first time in most residents' memory, a working construction site. Sherman Library & Gardens broke ground on February 26, 2026 at 2:26 pm for the most important revitalization in the history of the institution, and construction is expected to last 18 months and be complete in late Summer 2027. If you walk in this summer expecting the Sherman you know, adjust the expectation. A large portion of the garden is fenced off for a reimagining and the entrance door has moved to the corner of Dahlia, so the experience will not include all of the grounds and exhibits it used to.

The scope is not cosmetic. The reconstruction includes an iconic Bell Tower Entrance, revitalization of important garden areas within the campus, and relocation of the restaurant to Pacific Coast Highway so the central garden area can be used primarily for educational programming. That last piece is the one worth thinking about as a resident. When 608 Dahlia moves out to PCH in 2027, the middle of Sherman stops being a lunch destination and goes back to being a garden. For twelve months you have a version of Sherman that will not exist again.

The Newport Beach City Council recently issued a proclamation naming Sherman Library & Gardens as the "Cultural Hub" of Corona del Mar. Groundbreaking: February 2026. Ribbon: late Summer 2027.

The summer programming has not paused for the dust. This year's outdoor installation is the Dog Days of Sherman exhibition, larger-than-life sculptures by mixed-media artist Elizabeth Laul Healey, who hails from Laguna Beach and Corona del Mar. It is a good excuse to visit even if the pathways are shorter than you remember. Admission remains a $5 garden fee, and the hours run 10:30 am to 4:00 pm daily.

What's Changed on East Coast Highway

The dining spine of the Village is a short walk, and most of the names on it have not moved in a decade. Two of them, though, are worth a second look this summer.

• Foretti's CDM. Foretti's established itself as a highlight of the Newport Beach dining scene when it opened in 2013, and it now operates under the new ownership of longtime restaurateur and Level 1 Sommelier Thaddeus Foret, continuing the signature recipes created by the restaurant's namesake chef and his culinary team, many of whom remain in the kitchen. New owner, same kitchen bench.
• CdM Restaurant, 2325 E. Coast Hwy. The concept is chef-driven American cuisine, built by Hollywood producer McG in partnership with restaurateur Jordan Otterbein, the same team behind A Restaurant in Newport Beach. Executive Chef Elvis Morales runs the menu, and downstairs is Under CDM, a speakeasy that takes no password and no reservations.
• Five Crowns, since 1965. Still a replica of one of England's oldest country inns, and a dining legend in Corona del Mar since 1965. If you have not walked into the bar in a while, walk in.
• SideDoor. The Frank family refurbished and reopened the traditional British pub at Five Crowns in 2009 as Corona del Mar's first and only English-style gastropub. It runs as a separate operation from Five Crowns and is the easiest room in the Village for a Tuesday.
• Bandera, 3201 E. Coast Hwy. A Hillstone Restaurant Group neighborhood spot with a kitchen in the round, slow-roasting rotisserie chickens over a hardwood fire in a custom stone oven. The iron-skillet cornbread is the reason you tell out-of-town guests to come here.
• Café Jardin at Sherman. The coastal-garden cuisine marries California produce with a French pedigree, and the room sits in full view of the central flower gardens, with dining mostly outdoors. Enjoy it this summer at its current footprint; it moves to PCH next year.

Dates Worth Putting on the Fridge

Corona del Mar's summer calendar is shorter than Newport's, which is part of the appeal. Here are the fixed points for the balance of 2026 and the notes on where each one sits in its own history.

If you are keeping score on the running events, the 5K registration windows tell you something about who this race is for. A $10 spread between early and race-day pricing rewards the people who plan a season ahead. That is the Village crowd.

A Slow Saturday, If You Are Staying Local

The best argument for living here is that you can spend a full Saturday inside a two-mile radius and never repeat a view. Here is a route that assumes you already know the beach, so it skips the obvious.

Start early at Buck Gully Trailhead off Poppy Avenue. The canyon is a real trail, not a paved loop, and the coastal sage smells strongest before 9 am. Walk down to Little Corona Beach at the mouth of the gully; the tide pools at the south end are the reason to time it around low tide rather than sunlight.

Come back up to Inspiration Point at Ocean Boulevard and Orchid, then follow Ocean west to Lookout Point, which is the better bench between the two. Cut inland one block to Begonia Park. It is small, quiet, and the neighborhood dogs run the show in the morning.

By late morning you are within a block of Sherman. Buy the $5 garden ticket, walk the Dog Days sculptures, and stay for lunch at Café Jardin while it still sits where it sits. The line for the Tea Garden Creperie on the weekend moves faster than it looks.

For the afternoon, the answer is one of two rooms depending on your mood: SideDoor if you want to read on a banquette with a glass of something dry, or Bandera if you want the bar seat that faces the wood fire. Neither one will surprise you. That is the point.

Why This Summer Matters More Than It Looks

If you strip out the events and just watch the Village itself, a pattern shows up. Sherman is halfway through a $17 million rebuild. A restaurant that has anchored a corner for thirteen years has new ownership. The garden's dining room is planning its move to PCH. The Village is not standing still, and the version of it you are walking through in July and August will not be the version you walk through in September 2027.

That is worth naming, not because anything is going wrong but because the texture of a neighborhood tends to reveal itself in the quiet years between the loud ones. The families who bought here in the early 2000s did so partly because Sherman existed, partly because Five Crowns existed, partly because you could walk to a tide pool. All of those things are still true this summer. Some of them will look different next summer.

If you own a home in the 92625 and you have been thinking about what your equity actually reflects, a summer like this one is a good time to look up from the street and take stock. When you are ready to talk about what the Village looks like from a market perspective, or you simply want a coffee and a straight answer, Meghan Vittetoe knows Corona del Mar block by block. Let's Connect.