The Victorian Closing on Main Street Santa Monica: What Comes Next

The Victorian will hold its annual Halloween party on Oct. 31, and that will be its last night. After 20 years as a restaurant, bar and nightlife venue at 2640 Main St., the Victorian house in Heritage Square will close for renovation. The same operators plan to reopen it as The Santa Monican, a family membership club, with the opening targeted for mid-2028. The lease behind the change also moves the Sunday Main Street Farmers Market onto the street itself, and it fits a run of 2026 openings that lean toward daytime hours. Taken together, they point to Main Street putting more of its weight on the day, especially Sunday morning.

A nightclub operator who decided the night had run its course

The change came from the operators, not from the city. Garner Gerson and Adir Tal, the Santa Monica hospitality team behind The Victorian, approached the city in late 2025 with a plan to leave the late-night model behind. In the City of Santa Monica's Oct. 9 announcement, City Manager Oliver Chi said the two had shared that their nightlife model had run its course at The Victorian and discussed plans for a family membership club.

The city owns the property. Its staff reworked the lease rather than lose the tenant, and the City Council approved the assignment to The Santamonican Club, LLC unanimously at its March 24 meeting. The house sits in Heritage Square, across from the California Heritage Museum, and has served as a restaurant and event venue for decades. City documents give different years for when it was built and moved there. The October press release says 1892 and 1973, and the March council staff report says 1903 and 1977.

The plans for The Santa Monican include a pool, a spa and fitness center, a family and youth facility, a coffee bistro, and a restaurant and bar, with gardens and gathering spaces on the grounds. The operators also say they will work with the city on seasonal events at the property, including free summer barbecues, Santa Monica Snow Days and holiday celebrations. In the same release, Tal said "people met their husbands and wives here and celebrated some of the best nights of their lives." Gerson said he wants "families walking the neighborhood, visiting local shops, having dinner and making memories here."

What the new lease keeps public

The site is city land, so the public commitments in the lease matter as much as the club. According to the city and to Westside Current's report on the lease plan, they include:

• Parking: the 25 parking spaces on the site stay open to the public.
• The lawn: public access to the lawn beside the Santa Monica Heritage Museum will not be reduced.
• The farmers market: the operator keeps supporting the Sunday Main Street Farmers Market with restrooms, storage, power and water.
• Scholarship memberships: up to 20% of memberships are set aside as free scholarships for qualifying Santa Monica residents. The city's release names families, educators and small business owners among them.
• Term: a 10-year base term with three five-year extension options.

Membership details and pricing have not been released. The city says the operators will announce them in the coming months. Westside Current reports that the plan calls for a 12- to 18-month renovation, including a new roof, new mechanical systems and a rebuilt commercial kitchen.

Sunday is set to become the street's main event

The city's release says that "under the lease, the Sunday Farmers Market will transition to a weekly, open street event on Main Street." Today, according to the council staff report, farmers, food vendors and merchants set up in the property's parking lot, and education booths and musicians use the driveway and lawn. As an open-street event, it would put Main Street at the center of every Sunday.

The details have not been published. Neither the city's release nor the council staff report gives a start date, a list of closed blocks, or hours for the street format. The state's certified-market list, current as of Oct. 1, 2026, places the market at 2640 Main St., Main St. at Ocean Park Blvd., from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The council staff report lists operating hours of 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., which likely covers setup and breakdown.

There has already been one preview. On Sunday, Aug. 23, the city's market page listed the regular market followed by a street event that ran into the evening, organized by the Ocean Park Association and the Main Street Business Improvement Association. The next one comes this weekend.

Sunday, Oct. 18: Main Street Block Party + Day of the Dog. The city lists Main Street closed between Pier Avenue and Pacific Street from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Main Street Business Improvement Association's event listing gives public hours of noon to 6 p.m. It also lists:

• The farmers market at its usual 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
• Day of the Dog from Pacific Street to Ocean Park Boulevard, noon to 5 p.m.
• Live music and DJs along Main from Ocean Park to Pier.
• A beer garden in the Ashland Hill parking lot from 1 to 6 p.m.
• Fitness circuits at 2215 Main St. and a classic-car meet from 2 to 6 p.m.
• A Route 66 centennial cake celebration at 3 p.m. on the Pier Avenue stage.

The event is free and open to all ages. Of each $10 cocktail-ticket registration, $8 goes to the Santa Monica Animal Shelter Foundation.

The openings that fit the same direction

The Victorian's change is the largest single example, but the openings around it lean the same way. Here is where Main Street stands as of mid-October:

Met Her at a Bar is the clearest case. It is an all-day café from restaurateurs Mindy and Vinny Kinne, their first in Santa Monica, and the city says it brought roughly 100 jobs. It sits across the street from The Victorian.

Bar Fortuna is described two ways. The city calls it "an all-day wine bar from the team behind Crudo e Nudo." The Daily Breeze describes it as a pasta and Italian cocktail restaurant from chef Brian Bornemann, one block from Crudo e Nudo. Bornemann told the paper that "everything will be coming from California," meaning no imported parmesan, pecorino or Italian olive oil. His pick on the menu is the fennel salad. Other dishes include Spaghetti alla Puttanesca, a squid-ink Fettuccine negre with calamari, and a "Clam Show" Bucatini. The Daily Breeze reported that no specific opening day had been set, and that Bornemann expected the kitchen to be running by the end of October.

Where the evenings are going

Main Street still has late nights; they are spread across smaller rooms. Circle Bar, a Main Street fixture since 1949, came back in May after nearly three years dark. Before it reopened, the Santa Monica Mirror reported planned hours of Thursday through Saturday, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. That was a pre-opening schedule, so current hours may differ. Bar Fortuna adds a dinner-and-cocktails room at 2917 Main. Gerson and Tal, who are closing the street's best-known late-night address, plan to reopen Nameless at 2810 Main St., a venue that closed during the pandemic. They have not given a date.

In other words, the same operators are putting a family club on the large city-owned site and keeping an evening venue a few blocks south. The biggest site on the street is going to families and daytime use, while evening business continues in smaller spaces nearby.

The dates that set the next two years

1. Sunday, Oct. 18: Main Street Block Party + Day of the Dog, with Main closed from Pier Avenue to Pacific Street.
2. Late October: Bar Fortuna's expected opening at 2917 Main St., with no day announced yet.
3. Saturday, Oct. 31: The Victorian's final Halloween party and last night of operation, as reported by KTLA.
4. Late 2026: Renovation expected to begin at 2640 Main St.
5. To be announced: The start date and route for the weekly open-street farmers market, plus membership pricing for The Santa Monican.
6. Mid-2028: The Santa Monican's targeted opening.

As of the state's Oct. 1 listing, the Sunday market runs at 2640 Main St., at Main and Ocean Park Blvd., from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

If you own near Main Street or Ocean Park and want to talk through how a weekly open-street market and a new club at 2640 Main could affect your property over the next two years, Susan Stark Homes offers a Private Consultation, handled with the discretion our clients expect.