~5 min read

Good morning. It's the last unofficial weekend of summer — three days off, the water at its warmest, and every excuse you need to do the thing you've been saving for "later this summer." This is later. ☕

This week in OC: all three Laguna art festivals close within 72 hours of each other. The Festival of Arts ends Thursday, the Pageant of the Masters takes its final bow Friday night with a one-night closing celebration, and the Sawdust sweeps up its 60th season Sunday. Summer doesn't end on the calendar in Laguna — it ends when the sawdust gets swept.

In today's Buzz:

— Kevin

The whole world, one street, three days. The Orange International Street Fair takes over Old Towne Orange Friday through Sunday — the streets radiating off the Orange Circle become a dozen countries at once: Greek, German, Polynesian, Italian, Mexican, Japanese and more, each with its own food-and-music block around Plaza Park.

It's been running every Labor Day weekend since 1973, and here's the part most people don't know: every food and drink booth is run by a local nonprofit — high school teams, service clubs, church groups. That gyro is a fundraiser. The rare OC institution that's exactly as good as you remember it, and it only exists three days a year.

Here's what to know:

More: orangestreetfair.org

Forward this to the friend who plans their whole year around the German beer booth.

Worth leaving the house for (Fri Sept 4 – Mon Sept 7). Heads up: this is historically one of the busiest beach weekends of the year — go early, the lots fill by 10.

🎶 Tunes at the Dunes — Fri–Sun, 5–8pm (Newport Dunes, Newport Beach). Free live music on the sand all three nights: Kelly Boyz Band (country rock) Friday, Family Style (soul/rock) Saturday, Flashback Heart Attack (80s) Sunday. Food trucks and a bar from 2pm. Free, family-friendly. → newportdunes.com

🎭 The Pageant's one-night closing party — Fri Sept 4 (Festival of Arts grounds, Laguna Beach). The Pageant of the Masters ends its 2026 season with "The Greatest Party of All Time" — a one-night-only celebration. If you've never watched humans turn into living paintings, this is the most festive possible last chance. ($) → foapom.com

🎨 Sawdust Art Festival, final weekend — through Sun Sept 6 (935 Laguna Canyon Rd). Sixty seasons of the "Rejects Festival" ends Sunday. Go say goodbye to summer under the eucalyptus. ($) → sawdustartfestival.org

🌍 Orange International Street Fair — Fri–Sun (Old Towne Orange). The Big Thing. See above; bring cash and pace yourself.

🎤 The Second City Goes Coastal — Fri Sept 4 (VEA Newport Beach, Sunset Lawn). The legendary Chicago improv troupe, outdoors on a resort lawn at sunset. ($) → veanewportbeach.com

🍖 Labor Day BBQ at Pendry Newport Beach — Mon Sept 7. Grill favorites, a DJ, lawn games — the "we did something on the actual Monday" option. $31 adults / $20 kids. ($) → pendry.com

(Double-check times before you go — events move.)

Children's Street at the Street Fair (Fri–Sun). Inside the fair there's a whole blocked-off street of kid stuff — games, activities, no alcohol allowed — open until 8:30 each night. My plan with my three: eat our way around the world one skewer at a time, then park them on Children's Street while I make a second pass at the Greek block. Free entry. → orangestreetfair.org

Wild Rivers' long-weekend hurrah (Great Park, Irvine). The park is open all four days — Friday 12–6, Saturday through Labor Day Monday 10:30–6 — and then it's weekends-only through its mid-October close. Labor Day Monday is the bonus splash day. ($) → wildrivers.com

Newport Dunes, all weekend. The free concerts run 5–8pm, and the Inflatable Water Park and rentals are open daily 9:30am–6pm. Concert free; water park paid. ($) → newportdunes.com

Evergreen backups: Crystal Cove tide pools at low tide, Irvine Park Railroad, Santa Ana Zoo.

Cookie day is Friday. Levain Bakery — the NYC bakery whose six-ounce cookies have their own tourism economy — opens its first Orange County store this Friday, Sept 4, at Fashion Island (315 Newport Center Dr, near Macy's). It's only the fourth California location. Expect a line; the line is part of it. → levainbakery.com

Coffee Importers — now pouring at the Ocean Institute (Dana Point). Spotlight-city pick, with a plot twist. The Miller family's harborside coffeehouse opened in 1975 and spent 46 years as the taste of the old harbor — espresso, a pastry, boats at golden hour. When the $600M harbor rebuild reached its doors last summer, it didn't die; it moved across the water into the Ocean Institute, with indoor seating and fresh bakes from Rubee June. Same family, same golden hour, new slip. 24200 Dana Point Harbor Dr, at the harbor's west end. → coffeeimporters.com

And a farewell worth planning: Wind & Sea closes Sept 15 after 54 years in the harbor. If you owe it a goodbye mai tai, you have exactly two weekends. → windandsearestaurants.com

(beachhead spotlight — round two)

Dana Point got the spotlight back in issue #6, so these are the deeper cuts — and this town's deep cuts are all surf:

Next issue: round two continues down the corridor — San Clemente.

(realtor-bridge section)

Market pulse (week of Aug 31, 2026): inventory fell for a third straight week to 5,083 homes (down 89 from the August peak), with 432 closings. But everything is slower: median days on market ticked up to 45 and the average hit 64 — both 2026 highs — while the single-family median closed price eased to $1,460,000 from $1.5M. Fewer homes, softer prices, slower deals: the back-to-school lull is real. → ocrealestateinc.com

The wild one: 11 Beach View Ave, Dana Point — $25,900,000. Inside The Strand at Headlands, the guard-gated bluff enclave above Strand Beach: 6 beds, 9 baths, 8,237 square feet. But the flex isn't the house — it's the commute. The Strand's blufftop park has its own funicular — an inclined railway that carries you down the bluff to the sand. The median OC house takes 45 days to sell; this neighborhood comes with its own train. → rubyhome.com

(Soon we'll feature a real for-sale home here every week. OC agent with a listing people should gawk at? Reply to this email — let's talk.)

The 1910 photo that started OC's biggest party.

Then: In 1910, the young citrus town of Orange threw a one-day street fair around its little plaza — games, food, the whole town out on the street. One photograph of it survived.

Sixty-three years later, Mayor Jess Perez saw that photo and pitched an idea for the city's 1973 centennial: bring the fair back, but have each of Orange's cultural communities host its own block. About 50,000 people showed up to the revival.

Now: the Orange International Street Fair draws up to 100,000 people a day, the food booths are still run entirely by local nonprofits, and Old Towne Orange — the largest National Register historic district in California — still parties around the same plaza. This weekend, you can stand roughly where that 1910 photographer stood, holding a bratwurst funded by a high school baseball team.

Some towns preserve their history in a museum. Orange throws it a party.

Now you: what's your favorite OC memory — a place, a smell, a summer? Hit reply — your missed-rides and celebrity-sighting replies are still rolling in, and I'm saving the best for a full reader-takeover section soon.

That's the week. Eat your way around the world in Orange, catch one last living painting in Laguna, and pour one out (a mai tai, obviously) for the old harbor.

Three tiny favors:

1. Hit reply with your favorite OC memory. The reader-memory section is coming — I'm collecting.

2. Refer 2 friends with your link below and I'll send you the OC Insider's Guide (free). It's genuinely good.

3. Forward this to the friend who refuses to call it anything but "the Circle."

See you next week.

— Kevin

Want your OC business in front of these readers? This spot's open. Reply to this email and let's talk.