~4 min read

Good (late) morning. The Fair’s in full swing, the south swell is filling in, and this Saturday the biggest surf contest on earth sets up shop on the south side of the HB pier. This might be the most OC week of the year. Coffee up. ☕

This week in OC: the US Open of Surfing opens Saturday — and surfers have been competing on that exact stretch of sand since 1959, back when it was called the West Coast Surfing Championship. About 75 surfers entered that first one. Jack Haley took the men’s title, and a 15-year-old Linda Benson won the women’s — on boards you’d barely recognize today.

In today’s Buzz:

— Kevin

The US Open of Surfing is back — nine days of the world’s best surfing, free, at the HB pier. The 2026 Lexus US Open of Surfing runs Saturday, July 25 through Sunday, August 2 on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier. It’s four contests in one — men’s and women’s junior tours, a high-stakes men’s Qualifying Series battle, and a women’s Championship Tour event with the world’s Top 17 — plus the usual beach-festival sprawl. New this year: free concerts right on the sand, starting opening night (Saturday) with G. Love & Special Sauce and OC’s own Matt Costa.

Go early. The heats are the easy part — parking is the real contest. (There’s a free bike valet near 5th Street downtown on the weekends, which is honestly the pro move.)

More: usopenofsurfing.com

Forward this to the friend who calls in “sick” every US Open week.

Things worth leaving the house for (Fri July 24 – Sun July 26):

🏄 US Open of Surfing — opening weekend, Sat–Sun (Huntington Beach). The anchor. Heats all day, then G. Love & Special Sauce and Matt Costa on the sand Saturday night. Free. → usopenofsurfing.com

🎤 ‘90s night at the Fair — Sun July 26, Pacific Amphitheatre (Costa Mesa). Sugar Ray, The English Beat, and Smash Mouth on one stage. Every song you sang in a Civic in 1999, plus your ticket includes same-day Fair admission. Fri is Kolohe Kai + Hirie for island vibes. (Tickets/$) → pacamp.com

🎷 Live on the Lawn — Sat July 25, 4–7pm (Fashion Island, Newport Beach). A free all-star jazz tribute to pianist James Williams, led by drummer Shawn Baltazor, on the Neiman’s–Bloomingdale’s lawn. Blankets yes, chairs no. → visitnewportbeach.com

🎸 Dana Point Concerts in the Park — Sun July 26, 2:30–6pm (Sea Terrace Park). Flock of 80s then Flashback Heart Attack — free, in an ocean-view park, benefiting the 5th Marine Regiment Support Group. Spotlight-city synergy. → danapoint5thmarines.com

🕺 OC Parks Summer Concerts — Thu July 23, 5pm (Irvine Regional Park). Free Boy Band Review show (music at 6) — food trucks, beer garden, free parking, zero shame about knowing every word. → ocparks.com

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

The honest math with three kids this week: beach chairs at the US Open, or the Fair on a weekday. Both work.

US Open with kids = free grandstand. Free entry, heats all day, and kids are mesmerized by the airs. Pack the wagon, go morning-early, exit before the afternoon crush. → usopenofsurfing.com

OC Fair, weekday mode. Kids 5 and under free, 6–12 just $9, and a Wednesday or Thursday late-morning entry is the calm window. Livestock barns → one ride → split a funnel cake → leave victorious. → ocfair.com

Free movie night: Twilight under the stars — Fri July 24 (Yorba Regional Park). OC Parks’ Sunset Cinema, free with free parking, food trucks on site, movie at sunset. More of a tweens-and-parents pick — the littles can run the park. → ocparks.com

Standing summer plays: Crystal Cove tide pools (free), Newport Dunes Movies on the Beach (Fri/Sat), and Cinemark’s $1.75 Summer Movie Clubhouse on Wednesday mornings.

Spilling the Tea — HEYTEA is (almost) at South Coast Plaza. The global cheese-foam-tea phenomenon is building out its OC debut in Carousel Court at South Coast Plaza — still “coming soon” as of this week, and expect a line the day it isn’t. Order the cheese-foam jasmine and report back.

Tapas, Incoming — Telefèric Barcelona signs at Fashion Island. The Barcelona-born, family-run tapas-and-pintxos restaurant is taking over the old Hopdoddy space in Newport Beach, with an opening targeted for August — its first OC location. Radar, not calendar. Yet.

Wind & Sea — Dana Point Harbor. Go this summer, because it’s the last one. After 54 years of mai tais and macadamia-crusted fish over the boat slips, the harbor-front classic just announced it’s closing September 15 to make way for the harbor rebuild (the owners are in talks about a reimagined concept in the new Boathouse, but nothing’s signed). That gives you about seven weekends of patio-at-sunset left. Watch the masts sway, order the chowder, tip your cap to a Dana Point institution. → windandsearestaurants.com

(beachhead spotlight #6)

Dana Point gets the spotlight — the most historic surf town in California, mid-glow-up:

Next issue: San Clemente.

Market pulse (late July 2026): OC’s active inventory just hit a new 2026 high — 5,165 listings — while average days-on-market held at 60. Meanwhile the median single-family closed price jumped to about $1.58M this week. Translation: more homes to pick from and longer to decide than we’ve seen in years, but the good ones still aren’t getting cheaper.

The wild one: 20 Harbor Island, Newport Beach — $59,000,000, on the market for the first time in 70+ years. A circa-1937 residence on TWO lots (100 feet of combined frontage) on the most exclusive island in Newport Harbor, with a private dock that takes a 78-foot yacht — and could be reconfigured for a 100-footer, if that’s your problem. Same family since the Eisenhower administration. You’re buying a piece of harbor history and arguably the best turning-basin view in the county.

More: compass.com

The Dana Point guy who invented the endless summer.

Before surf culture was a billboard, it was a 26-year-old from Dana Point with an 8mm camera. Bruce Brown set up shop in town in 1958, and in 1964 released The Endless Summer — two surfers chasing summer around the globe — which ran for 48 straight weeks in one New York theater and got him called “the Fellini of the foam.” He was part of the Dana Point Mafia, the crew (Hobie Alter and friends) that turned a sleepy harbor town into the beating heart of surf culture — the surfboard, the surf shop, and the surf movie all basically grew up on the same few blocks. There’s a bronze statue of Bruce at Watermen’s Plaza on PCH today, camera in hand, still watching the point where Killer Dana used to break.

Fitting that the world’s biggest surf contest opens up the coast in HB this Saturday — the whole thing traces back to guys like Bruce.

Now you: who’s the most OC-famous person you’ve ever run into at the grocery store? Hit reply — best one gets featured next week.

That’s the week. Get to the pier Saturday, and if a stranger hands you a Smash Mouth setlist at the Fair on Sunday, that’s just the county working as intended.

Two tiny favors:

1. Hit reply with your best OC-famous celebrity sighting — I’m collecting them for Remember When.

2. Forward this to the friend who’s been “going to learn to surf” since 2011.

See you next week.

— Kevin

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