New In Pacific Grove

Pacific Grove is sporting some new stores along its main streets.  From one end of town to the other, along Lighthouse Avenue and up and down crossing streets, entrepreneurs are giving it a go, filling up once-empty storefronts and feeling optimistic.  

There is a fine new restaurant that's open from 4 PM to closing at the corner of Fountain and Lighthouse, occupying a corner location in the big Holman's building.  It's a French country-style place called Le Normandie whose sure hit is coq au vin, according to many.  The onion soup will send the chill right out of your bones.  This is not a place to find experimental high-priced or highfalutin Cal-Euro food. Instead long-loved classic French favorites are cooked to a delicious turn on a nightly basis.  During our currently cool and breezy weather conditions, you feel well-fortified after a meal, content, satisfied.  It opened very quietly a few months ago and is doing well by all accounts.  The owner will greet you with a smile and lovely hospitality when you go.

Further along Lighthouse Avenue, heading west toward the post office, you will notice a new venture called Carried Away that has only been open a week.  They feature ladies handbags, accessories and small items for the home.  The proprietress also owns, with her husband, Miss Trawick's Garden Shop, a popular garden and home gift shop found around and below the Red House Cafe.  Both shops are fun to browse around and chat with the owner.  Very friendly and both very pretty shops.  Guests who stay down at the Centrella Inn or at the Gosby House Inn - two popular B&Bs in town - enjoy a very short and easy stroll to find gift shops, book stores, cafes and beauty boutiques nearby.

On Forest Avenue, just down from Grove Market is a new baby supply boutique shop called Sprout Baby Boutique, filled with unusual and unique clothing and small items for people newly arrived on earth.  The shop is very small, but the owner carries a full array of hard-to-find special shoes for babies and toddlers as well as things you may only otherwise find at boutique websites online.

Forest Avenue is now lined from top to bottom with all sorts of browseable small shops, most oriented to families and locals who style themselves non-Target, small-town locals.

Pacific Grove, like the entire Monterey Peninsula is anticipating a vigorous influx of visitors who will be here for the US Open Golf Championship in June.  Trees along Lighthouse are to be lit with thousands of sparkling lights in the evening.  US flags will flutter from the lamp posts and merchants will be fully stocked.

Carmel will be impacted during the tournament with people who love to poke and wander around.  They will be rewarded with fine restaurants, cafes and enough art galleries to satisfy the most energetic and determined art collectors; there are over a hundred galleries.  However, the prices are high in Carmel and parking is at a premium.  

The new stores on Lighthouse are good signs of economic energy, and every store owner is ready to welcome you.  We may have cold air here in PG, but we have warm hearts.