Fourth Fridays Found the 600 Block Just as Menlo Park Reconsidered the Plaza
October 22, 2026
October 22, 2026
For six years, the 600 block of Santa Cruz Avenue, the stretch between Curtis and Doyle streets where eastbound traffic stopped in 2020, has been Menlo Park's experiment with a closed street as a public square. This summer, a new Friday night music series brought hundreds of people downtown, and by October the block was its center stage. Then on Oct. 13, a majority of the City Council said it favored testing a design that gives one lane back to cars.
The reasons for that shift say little about how the block is used. They come from what downtown Menlo Park is about to build around it. The pilot Councilmember Drew Combs proposed would turn the next six months to a year of ordinary afternoons and Friday nights into the evidence a future council uses to decide.
The closure began as a pandemic measure and became policy step by step. According to the City of Menlo Park's plaza project page, the milestones run like this:
The June 2025 decision rested largely on how people were already using the block. The Almanac reported that picnic tables in front of Walgreens, Starbucks and Tilak had become a small gathering spot. During the school year, teens met there after school, and a Menlo-Atherton freshman who had been among the Hillview students the year before said they ate, talked and biked there "almost every day after school." Ali El Safy, who owns Bistro Vida, told the paper that people wanted to "drink coffee, sit down and read a newspaper."
The furniture discussion that fall showed how seriously the council treated the space. The Almanac's November 2025 coverage described a contemporary picnic table priced at $2,430 to $2,970 and a movable round metal table at $620 to $805, with an emphasis on making the space appealing to students from Hillview and the Valparaiso area.
Until July, the case for the plaza rested on everyday weekday use. Fourth Fridays added nights. The free monthly music series, produced by the nonprofit Downtown Menlo Fund, debuted on July 24, 2026. The Almanac reported that hundreds of people came downtown while businesses stayed open late and musicians played from 6 to 9 p.m.
The useful numbers in that coverage are the ones with a comparison attached. LeVant Dessert owner Maya Fezzani told The Almanac that Friday nights in Menlo Park are typically a "ghost town." At Gallery House, which stayed open three hours later than usual, photographer Steve Shpall said the gallery might see only a couple of people on some days, and more than 30 came in during the first hour of music. El Safy said Bistro Vida and Bar Loretta had 40 to 50 more patrons than on a typical Friday. Mademoiselle Colette, Feldman's Books, Gitane and Bow Wow Meow also stayed open, and Bow Wow Meow handed out free samples of liquid pumpkin and goat's milk to visiting dogs.
During the debut, Fund co-founder Laura Melahn described the scene to The Almanac:
"The Members (band) has the community dancing in the plaza. Bistro Vida is full. Roma is full. And overall Santa Cruz Ave is bumping."
By October, the 600 block was the center of the schedule. The Fourth Fridays lineup for Oct. 23 put Country Cougars, with line dancing, on the Plaza Stage in the middle of the 600 block. Clint Baker & The All Stars played the Cafe Borrone and British Bankers Club plaza, Sean Biggar played outside Mademoiselle Colette near Roma, and balloon artist Steven Koehler worked the corridor by Cheeky Monkey and Susie Cakes. The 2026 calendar listed four dates in all: July 24, Aug. 28, Sept. 25 and Oct. 23.
At the Oct. 13 meeting, Fund chair Marnie Foody linked the series directly to the plaza. She said downtown businesses saw their sales jump on Fourth Fridays and that removing the plaza would limit the Fund's ability to keep hosting. "We are seeing literally hundreds of people coming not just from Menlo Park, but from the surrounding area, to our downtown," she said, according to The Almanac's report on the session.
The arguments for reopening came from beyond the block. Mayor Betsy Nash told the council she had done a "complete 180" over the previous month. She raised concerns about trash collecting around the plaza and about the closure getting in the way of construction on nearby projects. Those projects include a six-story residential building proposed at 800 Oak Grove Ave. and the council's effort to get housing built on three downtown parking lots. The City describes Parking Plazas 1 through 3 as under evaluation for housing and replacement public parking, and it has not yet determined how much replacement parking there will be or how it will be laid out.
Nash did not frame it as a vote against plazas. "I'd actually love to see a plaza expanded at some point and generally a larger pedestrian area downtown, I just think right now is not the time," she said, as quoted by The Almanac.
Councilmember Jeff Schmidt was the lone dissenter and supported finishing the permanent plaza. "It's almost like dropping the ball at the 10-yard line before you score a goal," he said. The money explains his frustration. Staff reported spending about $61,000 on furniture and $30,000 on a design consultant, with about $250,000 left for the project. Economic Development Director Collette Hanna said the permanent plaza had been estimated for completion by the end of 2027.
Combs's proposal is a test. He suggested running the new layout for six months to a year and collecting data on how people respond, then comparing it with the current larger plaza and with the block's pre-COVID layout. "What I'm proposing is something that punts this to a new council in a year, but at that point they will have additional data points about how (this option) looks in practice," he said.
| Configuration | Eastbound lane | Bike lane | Gathering space | Status as of late October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current plaza | Closed | Not applicable | Full closed lane | In place since 2020 |
| Proposed pilot | Open | Removed | Smaller area in the parking spaces | Favored by a council majority, not yet voted on |
| Pre-COVID | Open | Not applicable | None | Comparison point for the pilot |
The third column decides whether things like the Country Cougars set can still happen. Foody's point at the meeting was about room: a smaller gathering space limits what the Fund can stage. The after-school picnic tables and the morning coffee crowd El Safy described need much less space than a Friday night band. That makes the pilot's footprint the detail to watch when it comes back to the council.
Nothing has changed on the ground yet. City Manager Justin Murphy said the next step is a council vote on reopening the lane at a future meeting, and The Almanac reported that the timeline for switching to the smaller layout is unclear. As of mid-October, the City's posted agendas did not include a date for that vote.
For now, the 600 block keeps its current layout, and the storefronts along it look much as they did this summer, with one gap. Left Bank Brasserie at 635 Santa Cruz Ave. served its last dinner in late June after 28 years, The Almanac reported. Its neighbors include Bar Loretta at 639, Cheeky Monkey Toys at 640 and Bistro Vida at 641. The council has also adjusted the rules for filling space like Left Bank's. Since June, ground-floor spas and salons can open on Santa Cruz Avenue without a conditional-use permit, and gyms and arcades can apply for one.
The Fourth Fridays calendar lists no November or December date. Foody told the council the Fund "had hoped to build our series to a full schedule of events in 2027," a goal that now depends on how much of the block stays open to people.
The next scheduled downtown gathering is the City's free Shop Local! Light Up the Season runs at Fremont Park on Friday, Dec. 4, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., with performances, cocoa and a tree lighting. The City says the oak tree will be lit this year.
If you own near downtown and want to talk through how the 600 block's next layout and the planned parking-lot housing could affect daily life on your street and your home's value, Bob Kamangar follows these decisions closely and is glad to walk you through what each scenario could mean. Let's Connect.
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