Surf City Nights return to Huntington Beach

Surf City Nights are back.

The venerable Tuesday night street fair returned this week to downtown Huntington Beach, with about 50 vendors set up along three blocks of Main Street between 5 to 9 p.m.

Restrictions are easing across Orange County, which moved into the red tier for reopening on Sunday and has case numbers that suggest the orange tier could be soon to follow. Surf City Nights had been shut down since March 2020 due to the coronavirus.

Sean Dick, who owns RedBeard’s Hot Sauce with his wife, Carolyn, set up shop on the second block, at the corner of Main Street and Olive Avenue in front of Wet Dog Tavern.

“I thought the energy was outstanding,” Dick said of the first week back. “It was fantastic. It really felt like the street fair used to be, that was the best part about it. They brought us back when they first started the farmer’s market, and that was about three months ago. Now that they opened it up for the street fair, everybody came out.

“The foot traffic was just steady all night long. I think people were just dying to get out of the house and go have something to do again.”

Jaime Strong, the marketing manager for the downtown Business Improvement District, said there were fewer vendors at Surf City Nights than before COVID-19, since restaurants downtown have built patios outside to encourage outdoor dining.

“We’re utilizing the space that we have on Main Street to coexist with the outdoor dining patios,” she said. “We’re putting vendor booths between them where we can. It’s a positive that we’re working together, and it actually creates a really unique flow.”

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