Alki Beach This September: Why Local Businesses Outlast Summer
September 24, 2026
September 24, 2026
Walk Alki Avenue this week and the beach itself tells you almost nothing. The sand is still there, the view of downtown across Elliott Bay is still the best in the city, and the water is still too cold to swim in without a story to tell afterward. What's changed is quieter and more useful to notice: the parking lots at 60th that were a lost cause every warm Saturday in July now have open spaces at 2pm on a Tuesday, and three storefronts that sat empty or in transition for most of the year are finally telling you what they're going to be.
Each September, Alki shifts from the busy summer beach season to a quieter period. The changes on the avenue offer a snapshot of local businesses and projects as the season turns.
At 2738 Alki Ave SW, Fire Tacos & Cantina marked four years at the address this year, a run that matters mostly because of what came before it: seven different restaurants cycled through that same address in the eleven years prior. Its four-year tenure is longer than the roughly eighteen-month turnover described for previous tenants.
Three blocks away, Duke's Seafood, one of the most recognized seafood brands in the region, closed its location at 2516 Alki Avenue SW. A company spokesperson confirmed to West Seattle Blog that the closure followed the sale of the restaurant itself, not the building, meaning the business changed hands rather than the lease simply running out.
The closure was one of several changes along the avenue.
Recent activity on the avenue includes a new restaurant and a planned coffeehouse and bakeshop.
Do Si Korean BBQ took over the old Duke's space and opened in the summer of 2025. It had previously established its first location in Kent before expanding to Alki.
A few blocks over, at 2726 Alki Ave SW, the former Alki Beach Cafe space has been sitting in transition since the cafe closed, long enough that most residents told each other they'd stopped expecting anything to happen with it. The plan, announced last October, is a coffeehouse and bakeshop called Seaglass, led by Dan and Jackie Mallahan, the couple behind Driftwood next door, alongside Numa Coffee founder Seth Allen and pastry chef Gerald Hawkins Jr. The project originally targeted a spring 2026 opening. As of this spring it was still working through delays, with no new date announced since. The project is led by operators who already run a restaurant on the same block.
Together, these projects show two kinds of activity on the avenue: an opened restaurant and a coffeehouse and bakeshop still in development.
A different kind of local project is underway at the Alki Statue of Liberty.
This month, the Alki Community Council launched a fundraising drive to repair cracking in the statue's pedestal, aiming to raise $5,000 for mortar work before the damage from king tides and weather gets worse. West Seattle Blog quoted ACC president Charlotte Starck saying:
"It's either, do something about it, or sit here and watch it deteriorate."
The plaza around the statue was built in 2008 through a private community fundraising campaign, and the city never took on responsibility for maintaining it. The Alki Community Council has managed a small leftover fund from that original campaign ever since, but this repair falls outside what that fund was ever meant to cover. The current drive is separate from the original campaign.
The neighborhood’s seasonal schedule offers another view of this shift.
Alki runs on an official seasonal calendar, and this year that calendar got preempted before it even finished its normal run. Beach fires at the designated pits were scheduled to continue through Labor Day, September 7, but a Stage 2 Burn Ban shut them down before the calendar date arrived. The May 1 through September 30 summer schedule includes a 10:30 pm closing at Alki Beach and 24-hour access at the Don Armeni Boat Ramp. Alki Beach is set to revert to its standard 11:30 pm closing on September 30.
These schedule changes mark the transition from summer hours and activities to the fall season.
None of this requires you to do anything. If you live near Alki Avenue, these changes may already feel familiar.
They can still offer useful context if you're deciding where to get coffee this fall or trying to understand why the block looks different than it did last year.
If you're curious what any of this means for property values on the avenue, or you're weighing a move to this stretch of West Seattle and want someone who tracks these shifts as they happen, Larissa Wilson has spent fifteen years watching Alki change one lease and one season at a time. Reach out to schedule a private consultation.
Larissa's passion is helping people through the steps of buying and selling. She is willing to keep her clients involved throughout the entire process, but at the same time she doesn't want stress with the details, either, which is a part of what hiring her is all about! She knows the community and surrounding areas, including West Seattle, Greater Seattle and the Eastside.