Six months ago, a Tuesday-night walk down Coast Village Road ran along a familiar spine. Lucky's, Honor Bar, Tre Lune, Bettina, the Sushi | Bar at the Inn. You knew who was open, who took a walk-in, and where the deck stayed warm past nine. The road worked because it did not change.
It has changed. Between the Sunstone signage going up on 1294 and the plywood coming down at 1080, three of the more consequential storefronts on the mile have turned over since March, the Inn is cycling through a room-by-room refresh, and a second gravitational pull has settled in a mile east, at the corner of East Cabrillo and Los Patos. This is a note for people who already live here, on what is actually different about the walk this July.
1198, and the ghost of Bar Lou
The address at 1198 Coast Village Road has been a working restaurant space for a long time. It was Peabody's, then Oliver's, then Bar Lou. In February, when readers of Erik Torkells's Siteline began noticing lights on inside, the guess was another New York transplant. That turned out to be right.