~5 min read

Good morning. Labor Day's gone, the tourists went with it, and the water's still 73°. Locals call this stretch "the real summer" for a reason. This weekend: tall ships, lobster, and a 40th birthday party with a drone show. ☕

This week in OC: Segerstrom Center for the Arts turns 40. Segerstrom Hall opened in Costa Mesa on Sept 29, 1986 — on what used to be a lima-bean field — and the Center throws itself a free, campus-wide birthday party this Sunday (details below). Forty years ago, a Broadway house in the middle of a bean field sounded insane. Now it anchors the block.

In today's Buzz:

— Kevin

Dana Point Harbor becomes an 1830s port for three days. The Ocean Institute's 42nd annual Maritime Festival runs Friday through Sunday — tall ships at the dock, cannon battles on the water, a sailors' camp on the shore, pirates and mermaids for the kids.

Here's why it's more than a costume party. In 1835, a 20-year-old sailor named Richard Henry Dana Jr. anchored in this cove, watched cowhides — "California bank notes" — get flung off the cliffs to the boats below, and wrote it all down in Two Years Before the Mast. The town is named after him. The festival is Dana Point re-enacting its own origin story, on the exact water where it happened.

Here's what to know:

More: maritime-fest.org

Forward this to the friend who still owns a pirate costume.

Worth leaving the house for (Fri Sept 11 – Sun Sept 13). Beach note: the lots are empty, the water's warm, and the crowds are inland or in the harbor. This is the best beach weekend of the year to actually find parking.

⛵ Maritime Festival — Fri–Sun (Dana Point Harbor). The Big Thing. See above; bring the kids and a hat.

🦞 The Original Lobster Festival, 30th year — Fri–Sun (Fountain Valley Sports Park, 16400 Brookhurst St). Live Maine lobster, flown in daily and steamed on site. The signature feast — a 1.25-lb lobster, slaw, roll, watermelon, butter — is $40 with admission. Plus lobster rolls, lobster-on-a-stick, and tribute bands all weekend (Tom Petty Friday, Michael Jackson Saturday, Foreigner Sunday). Fri 5–10pm ($5), Sat 12–10pm & Sun 12–8pm ($15 online / $18 gate). Kids 12 & under free, free parking. Pro tip: pre-order the feast online — it's the only way to guarantee a lobster. ($) → originallobsterfestival.com

🎉 Segerstrom Center's Ruby Jubilee — Sun Sept 13, 2–8pm (Costa Mesa). FREE, no RSVP. The whole campus opens up: an instrument "petting zoo," open ballet classes, organ demos in the concert hall, a screening of the 1986 opening-night broadcast, a Pacific Chorale "Big Sing," and a giant cardboard-garden art build on the plaza — a nod to the lima-bean field it all sits on. At 6pm it turns into an 80s birthday bash with The M80s, capped by a drone show over the plaza. Free. → scfta.org

🎮 BlizzCon returns — Sat–Sun Sept 12–13 (Anaheim Convention Center). The first BlizzCon since 2023, and it's completely sold out — so this is less "go" and more "know why Harbor Blvd looks like Azeroth this weekend." If you're anywhere near the convention center, expect cosplay at every stoplight. → blizzcon.com

🏄 Surf City Day — Sun Sept 13 (Downtown Huntington Beach). Main Street goes old-school: vintage surf culture, classic boards, live music, local vendors, and the Blessing of the Waves at the pier. HB celebrating HB. Free. → hbdowntown.com

🍷 Pacific Wine & Food Classic — Sat Sept 12, 2–5pm (Newport Dunes). All-inclusive local chefs, wine, cocktails, and live music on the Back Bay. 21+, resort-chic, worth it once. ($) → pacificwineandfood.com

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

Pirates, mermaids, and cannons (Fri–Sun, Dana Point). The Maritime Festival is the kids item this week, and I'm not pretending otherwise. My plan with my three: the free Pirate Adventure Show on the Spirit of Dana Point (10:45am or 1:15pm), the touch tanks, then watch a cannon battle from the harbor walk for exactly zero dollars. If we splurge, it's a deck tour. Free–$. → maritime-fest.org

A free birthday party with a drone show (Sun Sept 13, Costa Mesa). The Ruby Jubilee's afternoon (2–6pm) is basically a giant hands-on arts playground — Instrument Petting Zoo, a cardboard-garden build, an open ballet class to watch, and a sensory-friendly room in Samueli Theater. Stay for the drones at 8. Free, no RSVP. → scfta.org

Maker Faire OC — Sat Sept 12 (10–5) & Sun Sept 13 (10–4), OC Fair & Event Center. Robot combat, 3D printers, hands-on workshops — the nerdiest, best day out in the county. $20/day, $35 weekend; ages 4 and under free. ($) → oc.makerfaire.com

Cheap extras: Lobster Fest is free for kids 12 & under (Sunday has a family show) · Wild Rivers is Sunday-only this weekend (10:30–5) and closes for the season Oct 11 — five swim days left, counting Sunday.

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

Burger Week is now a permanent September thing. The OC Restaurant Association's Burger Week runs Sun Sept 20 – Sat Sept 26 — roughly 70 restaurants doing special burgers from $10, plus $30/$35 "Lux Burger Pairings." New this year: organizers made it a fixed annual event, the fall sibling to March's Restaurant Week. Newport, HB, Irvine, Santa Ana, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest and more are in. I'll have picks next issue. → burgerweek.com

Zov's San Clemente — 155 Avenida Del Mar. Spotlight-city pick. Chef Zov Karamardian has run the Tustin original since 1987; this spring she opened a coastal "2.0" halfway down Del Mar's slope to the pier — same Mediterranean-California lineage (the pomegranate-glazed lamb, the mezze), rebuilt for a beach town with indoor and alfresco seating. It's been open since April, so the opening-week chaos is over and the kitchen is dialed. The move: weekend brunch (Sat & Sun from 10am), then walk downhill to the pier. → zovs.com

Coffee first: Bear Coast Coffee, 618½ Avenida Victoria — directly across from the pier, 6am–4pm daily. The check-the-waves coffee window. → bearcoastcoffee.com

Last call: Wind & Sea in Dana Point closes Tuesday, Sept 15. After 54 years in the harbor, this is the final weekend. → windandsearestaurants.com

(beachhead spotlight — round two)

San Clemente got the spotlight in issue #7 (Ole Hanson's 1925 Spanish Village, Trestles, Nixon's Western White House). Round two is the pier and the pool:

Next issue: round two rolls on. Irvine, or back to Huntington ahead of the Airshow — reply and vote.

(realtor-bridge section)

Market pulse (week of Sept 7, 2026): inventory fell for a fifth straight week to 4,984 homes — the first time under 5,000 since spring — with 443 closings. But the market is still slow-walking: median days on market is 46, a 2026 high, and the single-family median closed price is holding at $1,460,000. Fewer homes, steady prices, patient buyers. → ocrealestateinc.com

The ocean-view math: OC has 434 ocean-view single-family listings right now at a median ask of $5.8M. There are exactly 28 ocean-view listings under $1M in the entire county — almost all condos, mostly in San Clemente, Newport and HB — and they've been sitting a median 77 days. Translation: the cheapest ocean view in Orange County is a San Clemente condo, and it's been waiting for you since June.

The wild one: 4130 Calle Isabella, San Clemente — $43,000,000. At the end of a private cul-de-sac in guard-gated Cotton Point Estates — the bluff enclave that shares a fence line with Nixon's old Western White House — 7 beds, 11 baths, about 12,850 square feet on 2.6 acres: a separate guesthouse, wine cellar, prep kitchen, a 55-foot pool aimed at Catalina, a nine-car garage, and roughly 450 feet of private ocean frontage looking straight down at Cotton's Point and Trestles. It's the most expensive listing in San Clemente, and it's been on the market since March. In a county where the median house takes 46 days to sell, this one comes with its own surf break — and it's still waiting. → redfin.com

(angle this week: Remember This?)

Remember this? OP corduroy shorts.

If you grew up in OC in the 80s, you owned them: high-waisted Ocean Pacific corduroy walk shorts — cords, at the beach, on purpose. Jim Jenks, a San Diego surfboard maker, started OP in 1972 on a hunch that there was more money in the clothes than the boards. He was right. The corduroy short became the flagship, the company set up shop in Irvine, Tom Selleck wore them on Magnum, P.I., and by the mid-80s OP was doing about $400 million a year — in every department store in America.

More importantly, OP wrote the template. Quiksilver, Billabong USA, Volcom, Hurley — the entire surf-apparel industry set up in Orange County in its wake. Jenks went into the Surfing Walk of Fame in Huntington Beach in 2017.

You know you're from OC if you wore corduroy to the beach and it never once occurred to you that was weird.

Now you: hit reply with the OC thing you wore, rode, or ate that nobody outside the county understands. The best ones run right here — and the reader-takeover issue is coming.

That's the week. Watch a cannon battle in Dana Point, eat a lobster in Fountain Valley, and go sing happy birthday to a concert hall.

Three tiny favors:

1. Hit reply with your OP-corduroy-level OC memory. I'm collecting for the reader-takeover issue.

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's been to every Lobster Fest since the first one.

See you next week.

— Kevin

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