Most of the businesses moving into Montclair Village's empty storefronts this fall open in the morning or at lunch. Highwire Coffee is back to serving every day. The bistro taking over the old Pagarung Thai space plans to open with brunch and add dinner later. Grinders' former counter on Antioch Court is going to a walk-up banh mi shop. Meanwhile, the evening spot that closed this year hasn't been replaced, and the neighborhood's most talked-about dinner is now a few minutes up the hill on Thornhill Drive.
None of this was planned. Several longtime owners left the village this year for their own reasons, and the businesses taking over their spaces happen to be built for daytime. Put together, the changes move the village's busiest hours toward Sunday mornings and weekday lunches.
Who left, and when they were open
The first 2026 departure was reported in late April. Grinders Submarine Sandwiches had sold lunch out of a tiny Antioch Court shop since 1991. Owner Peter York retired without any announcement after 35 years serving what the East Bay Times called the village's "daytime crowd." His two-page menu listed 10 kinds of turkey sandwiches, and he kept regulars' orders and condiments saved in his computer.
A Great Good Place for Books on La Salle Avenue closed on Sunday, June 14. Debi Echlin and Helen Talley founded the shop in 1997, and Kathleen Caldwell had run it since 2005. Caldwell told The Oaklandside the store never fully recovered after COVID. She said this past December was its slowest holiday season since 2008, and that sales dropped again after Oakland began enforcing Sunday parking meters, which cut into foot traffic.
Two restaurant closures were reported over the summer. Perle Bar at 2058 Mountain Blvd. shut after nine years. It opened in 2017 as a California-French restaurant and relaunched in 2025 with a California-Vietnamese menu. Pagarung Thai Cuisine at 6200 Antioch St. put a permanent-closure sign on its door. The East Bay Times noted it had kept sporadic hours since the pandemic. The same Sept. 1 column reported that the Montclair Plaza shoe repair shop had closed for good. The owner asked customers with pending repairs to leave him a note.
These closures took out two kinds of business: daytime regulars like the sandwich counter and the bookstore, and evening dining at Perle. The businesses lining up behind them mostly replace the daytime side.
The address-by-address picture as of early October
| Address | What was there | What's coming | When it's open, or plans to be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6200 Antioch St. | Pagarung Thai Cuisine | Piggie's bistro | Brunch first, then lunch and dinner |
| 2069 Antioch Ct. | Grinders Submarine Sandwiches | Go Banh Mi | Catering now, walk-up "coming soon" |
| 2059 Mountain Blvd. | Highwire Coffee, temporarily closed | Highwire Coffee, reopened | Daily coffee and pastries |
| 1991 Mountain Blvd. | Rite Aid, closed July 2025 | CVS Pharmacy, relocating | Move expected by December |
| 6130 Medau Place | Former office space | Healthy Life Vitamins wellness suite | Open now |
| 2058 Mountain Blvd. | Perle Bar | No tenant announced | |
| 6120 La Salle Ave. | A Great Good Place for Books | No tenant announced |
Brunch comes first at the old Pagarung space
The most anticipated arrival is Piggie's. The East Bay Times reported that Bay Bridge Hospitality LLC filed an ownership-change application for the 6200 Antioch St. space. The owners are a mother-daughter team, Alex Piyapanee and Supapoon Kongthai, who planned to start brunch on Oct. 1 and add dinner after a soft opening. A mid-September column added that the owners are affiliated with Daughter Thai, and that sandwich boards around the village were promoting an October opening. The plan is to start with brunch before adding lunch and dinner in the space behind Safeway.
As of this writing, no published report confirms that the Oct. 1 brunch opening happened on schedule, so check before planning a weekend around it. Either way, the order is clear: brunch first, dinner later.
Walk-up lunch returns to Antioch Court, eventually
Go Banh Mi is taking over the space Grinders held for decades. For now, the business's own site says it is accepting catering orders only, with a $200 minimum. Walk-in and individual pickup orders are listed as coming soon. The East Bay Times described the planned walk-up menu as grilled meats, tofu, fried egg and other Vietnamese sandwiches.
For Antioch Court, that means a quick-lunch sandwich counter is replacing another one. When the window opens, the court gets back the weekday lunch business it lost when Grinders closed.
The morning businesses are already open
Two daytime businesses aren't waiting on permits or soft openings. Highwire Coffee, one of nine shops in the Emeryville-based chain, reopened at 2059 Mountain Blvd. after a shutdown. By mid-July it was serving coffee and pastries daily again and gradually expanding its hours.
Over on Medau Place, Healthy Life Vitamins turned a former office space into a wellness suite with infrared sauna, red light therapy, aromatherapy and a zero-gravity 4D massage chair. The suite costs $69 an hour, with discounts on two- and four-session packages. Bree Fletcher, the shop's sales and marketing manager, told the East Bay Times the store already sees customers coming in after physical therapy or a workout at one of Montclair's gyms. That puts the suite right in line with the village's morning and midday traffic.
The biggest daytime change is still coming. CVS Pharmacy leased the 27,000-square-foot former Rite Aid at 1991 Mountain Blvd., which Rite Aid gave up when it closed in July 2025 during a bankruptcy liquidation. In mid-September the lights were on and merchandise was going onto the shelves. The move is reportedly expected to finish by December, which will leave CVS's smaller current store across the street empty. So December will bring one more storefront change, this time from a business moving across the street.
Dinner moved up Thornhill Drive
The evening dining that left the village core hasn't disappeared from the area. Payakk sits at 5761 Thornhill Drive, on the Montclair and Merriewood border, a short walk from the Merriewood Stairs. Chef Nattaporn Pinpech, who also owns Secrets of Tiger in Emeryville with her husband Yong Pinpech, opened it about a year ago, according to The Oaklandside's late-September review. It serves dinner only, Thursday through Monday from 5 to 9 p.m., with large plates ranging from $27 to $46.
Payakk isn't new this season. With Perle and Pagarung closed and Piggie's dinner service still a later step, Thornhill Drive now covers much of the reservation-style dining near the village.
The plaza calendar also runs in daylight
The Montclair Village Association's fall programming fits the same pattern. The Picnic on the Plaza series ran a "Salsa & Sangria" afternoon on Sept. 20, and its final event of the season has a Halloween theme. That finale, Halloween Fun in Montclair Village, takes place Sunday, Oct. 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Village Plaza. It's free and open to all ages. MVA's event page lists DJ music, face painting, a photo booth, an Oakland Fire Department parade rig and family crafts tables. Kids can pick up free trick-or-treat bags to collect treats from farmers' market vendors and district shops, and scavenger hunt cards for a haunted hunt at the market are available at the MVA booth. The merchant trick-or-treat list below that on the page is still labeled 2025, so the list of participating shops may change.
The event overlaps with the Sunday farmers' market, which runs every week from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., rain or shine, at La Salle and Moraga avenues. The two together make Oct. 25 the busiest Sunday morning on this fall's calendar.
Elsewhere in the village, MVA's new Montclair Blooms public-art project painted Indian paintbrush, California tidytips and lupine across the wooden parklet Perle built during the pandemic. MVA executive director Daniel Swafford described it as a community-led effort to bring more public art to the village. The restaurant behind the parklet is closed, but the parklet itself is now one of the village's more colorful spots.
MVA is promoting its 24th annual Holiday Stroll for Thursday, Dec. 10, from 4 to 8 p.m., with free admission. The association notes that its detailed program is from last year and that 2026 details are still to come.
What's still unconfirmed
A few things are still open as of early October:
- Whether Piggie's brunch opened on Oct. 1 as planned, and when lunch and dinner start.
- When Go Banh Mi's walk-up window opens on Antioch Court.
- Whether CVS finishes its move across Mountain Boulevard by December, and what goes into its current space.
- Who takes over 2058 Mountain Blvd. and 6120 La Salle Ave. No tenant has been announced for either.
The last two spaces will decide whether the evening side of the village comes back. Perle's corner and the bookstore's La Salle storefront are the two remaining empty spaces, and either could end up as a dinner spot, a shop or another morning business.
When one of those leases gets signed, it can be useful to know how earlier tenants used the same space and how the block works around it. East Bay Home Transitions watches Montclair Village address by address, from the plaza to the Thornhill Drive storefronts. If you own near the village and want to know how this year's tenant changes affect your property and its sale timing, start your transition with a free home valuation and renovation plan.
