Costa Mesa doesn't work hard to impress you. It sits a few minutes inland from the water, quieter than its beach-town neighbors, and it tends to win people over slowly. You come for a show or a plate of tacos, and a few visits later you're the one giving directions. If you're looking for things to do in Costa Mesa, the good stuff rarely sits behind a big sign. Here's how a year here usually goes.
In this guide: Mornings outside · The Westside · 17th Street · Tacos · The anti-mall · South Coast Plaza · The fair · Quick answers
Weekend mornings outside
Fairview Park is the one I send people to first. It sits on the Westside bluffs above the Santa Ana River, with wide dirt trails and model planes buzzing over the field on weekends. There's enough open sky up there that you forget how close the freeway runs. TeWinkle Park is the other one, more manicured, good for a slow lap by the lake. And on weekend mornings the farmers market at the fairgrounds fills up with people packing bags with strawberries and stopping to talk longer than they planned.
The Westside, where the food is
For years the Westside was warehouses and little else. Now it's where a lot of the good eating happens. The breweries arrived first and pulled everything else along with them, so most evenings you'll find people spilling out of tasting rooms and food halls off Placentia. Portola Coffee started over here. So did a handful of kitchens that would be destination restaurants in another city and are just a Tuesday dinner in this one. The neighborhood still has a working, unpolished feel, which keeps it honest.
17th Street on the Eastside
Cross town and the pace changes. Seventeenth Street is the stretch locals name when you ask where to eat, a low, walkable run of restaurants and coffee bars, with a few old standbys that have stayed full for years. You can walk it, and people do, wandering between dinner and a wine bar, running into someone they know. This is the part of Costa Mesa that feels most like a small town wearing a city's zip code.
Tacos people won't switch from
Everyone here has a taco place they defend. Diego's has a following that borders on family loyalty, the kind of spot where regulars order without looking at the menu. There are trucks on the Westside people will cross town for, and carnitas counters that quietly sell out by early afternoon. Ask ten neighbors where to go and you'll get ten answers, and every one of them will be sure they're right. I'll just say the tacos are a real reason to live here, and I mean it.
The anti-mall on Bristol
The CAMP and The LAB sit across Bristol from each other, and together they're why "anti-mall" entered the local vocabulary. The LAB came first, an open-air courtyard of independent shops and a couple of restaurants built into an old industrial shell. The CAMP leans green and wellness-minded across the street. Both are slow places, meant for wandering with a coffee. If you've only seen the big-mall side of Costa Mesa, start here instead.
If the 17th Street walk or a Westside evening has you checking what homes go for here, my coming soon alerts flag Eastside and Mesa Verde listings before they reach the portals, and the Costa Mesa market update shows what things are actually selling for.
South Coast Plaza and a night at Segerstrom
Then there's the big-mall side, which happens to be one of the most serious shopping destinations in the country. South Coast Plaza draws visitors from all over, though for locals it leans more holiday-season and special-occasion than weekend habit. Next door, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts carries the town's cultural weight, with touring Broadway shows and a symphony season that runs from fall into spring. A performance followed by dinner nearby is one of the easiest good nights out in the county.
Summer belongs to the fair
Nothing marks the calendar like the OC Fair. Through most of July and into August the fairgrounds fill with concerts, livestock barns, deep-fried everything, and a Ferris wheel you can spot from the 55. It gets loud and crowded, and it's completely worth it. It's the one stretch of summer when the whole town seems to converge on the same few acres.
Quick answers about Costa Mesa
What is there to do in Costa Mesa on a weekend?
Start outside: Fairview Park’s bluff trails above the Santa Ana River with model planes overhead, a slow lap around the lake at TeWinkle Park, or the weekend farmers market at the fairgrounds. Then eat your way across town, from the breweries and food halls off Placentia on the Westside to the walkable restaurant run along 17th Street on the Eastside.
What is the anti-mall in Costa Mesa?
The LAB and The CAMP, sitting across Bristol from each other. The LAB came first, an open-air courtyard of independent shops built into an old industrial shell, and The CAMP leans green and wellness-minded across the street. Both are slow places, meant for wandering with a coffee.
When is the OC Fair?
Through most of July and into August at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds, with concerts, livestock barns, deep-fried everything, and a Ferris wheel you can spot from the 55.
The list of things to do in Costa Mesa runs longer than most people expect for a town this size, but the thing that tends to stick isn't any single attraction. It's how easily you fall into a routine you like. That's usually what happens with visitors. They come for the fair or a show, and after a few trips they start quietly checking what homes go for. Costa Mesa sits in the middle of everything coastal Orange County offers, without the full beach-town price on the address. If you've spent a few weekends here and started to wonder what it would be like to stay, I'd love to talk. You can grab a time on my calendar.
Jade Larney · Residential Real Estate | Anvil · (949) 995-JADE · [email protected] · DRE 02241676
A note from Jade
Curious what homes around here are actually selling for? Once a month I send the real numbers for Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Irvine, and Huntington Beach, in plain English, with what they mean for owners and buyers.
