Walk First Street on a Thursday evening this summer and you will pass two restaurants that were not there a year ago, one long-running steakhouse quietly on the market, and a boarded-up brewery slated to reopen as a food hall. Downtown Livermore is in the middle of a tenant turnover most residents have only half-noticed, and the summer calendar is the easiest way to see it up close.
The thesis of this post is simple. The block between roughly 1900 and 2500 First Street is being reshaped in 2026 by operator-driven concepts replacing legacy tenants, and the weekly downtown calendar is what turns that shift from a headline into something you actually taste and hear on a Thursday night.
The First Street turnover, restaurant by restaurant
Three new sit-down spots have committed to First Street addresses in the first half of 2026 alone. Two are open. One is finishing construction.
- Slice House by Tony Gemignani, 1948 First Street. The fast-casual pizza franchise owned by 13-time world pizza champion and Fremont native Tony Gemignani opened its first Tri-Valley location at 1948 1st Street, a location that can seat 36 people and has outdoor patio seating for 18. It sits next to the Legacy at Livermore apartment complex and is within walking distance of Café Calamari, First Street Alehouse, Maple Street Eatery, and Sauced BBQ.
- Zachary's Chicago Pizza, 2470 First Street, Suite 104. Specializing in deep-dish pies, Zachary's opened Feb. 2 in downtown Livermore, marking the chain's second Tri-Valley eatery, joining a site in downtown Pleasanton. Zachary's occupies the former site of Patxi's Pizza at 2470 First St., Suite 104.
- Le Nocturne, 470 First Street. Le Nocturne is set to open at 470 First Street in downtown Livermore according to a recent liquor license application, and owner Gianni Schell told Whatnow San Francisco the venue is targeting a mid to late May debut. The concept marks Schell's third in the area, joining Rebel Kitchen & Libations and Black Cat, which he opened last year with Dina Parks. It replaces the former home of Last Word, which was later rebranded as The Syndicate before closing in 2025, and departs from traditional French dining, offering a supper club-style experience with late-night service, EDM and house music.
The pattern is worth pausing on. All three arrivals are chef- or operator-branded rather than corporate rollouts, and two of the three moved into space vacated by another restaurant that could not make the rent work. That is the mechanism reshaping the street.
The Pennyweight site becomes a food hall
The largest change is not a single restaurant. It is a repurposed brewery.
Pleasant Hill-based Ayana Retail Inc. aims to refashion the site of now-shuttered Pennyweight Craft Brewing in Livermore into a micro-food hall dubbed The Storehouse – New Provisions, proposed for the former site of Pennyweight at 2455 Railroad Ave., with indoor and outdoor vendors, pop-ups and open seating with family-friendly areas. According to the listing, Ayana is seeking tenants for 6,600 square feet of space including restaurants, breweries and tap houses, craft cocktail establishments and boutique retailers.
The Storehouse concept is also meant to serve as a social gathering space with live music and community events, Ayana Principal Steve Mesita told Livermore Vine via email. Ayana Retail Inc. aspires to open The Storehouse in fall 2026 at the former Pennyweight Craft Brewing location, which means residents will spend this summer watching a brewery footprint reopen as multiple smaller tenants under one roof. If you have wondered why Railroad Avenue has felt sleepy on Friday nights lately, that is the reason, and the calendar for the fix is now on record.
Zephyr's listing tells you what First Street rent actually costs
The turnover story would be incomplete without the piece of it that is not being celebrated on Instagram. A block away from Slice House, one of the longest-running restaurants in downtown Livermore is quietly for sale.
Zephyr Grill & Bar in downtown Livermore was recently put on the market as its proprietors aim to condense their business portfolio. The longstanding eatery on First Street, known for serving steak, seafood and pasta dishes, has operated under owners Lynn Tei and Randy Tei for 21 years.
Zephyr navigated a months-long closure last year and reopened during November after a small fire reportedly in the prep kitchen in July and subsequent water damage spurred the site's restoration. The numbers in the listing put a floor under everything else on this block. For an asking price of $399,000, the sale includes seating, decorative lighting, built-in bar and backbar shelving, wine storage, refrigeration, kitchen infrastructure, prep areas and service equipment. It cites gross revenue of more than $2.8 million for the restaurant, and says rent at the unit is $14,300 per month.
Set that $14,300 monthly rent against the reality that a 21-year-old First Street institution grossing $2.8 million is stepping back, and you have the clearest possible read on why the new arrivals lean toward operators who already run two or three concepts. Solo debut restaurants are not the ones signing these leases in 2026.
The weekly rhythm to plan around
For a resident, the more useful question is not which restaurant opened last month. It is which nights of the week now reliably have something on First Street. The Livermore Downtown Inc. calendar makes that answer unusually clean this summer.
| Recurring event | When | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday Farmers Market | Year-round, Sundays 9am–1pm | Downtown |
| Thursday Farmers Market | Thursdays, April 9 – October 8 | Downtown |
| Discover Downtown Thursdays | Thursdays, April 9 – October 8 | Downtown merchants |
| Family First Night | June 5, July 3, Aug 7, Sept 4 | Downtown |
| Thirsty Thursday | June 19, July 17, Aug 21, Sept 18 | Downtown |
Family First Night runs June 5, July 3, Aug 7, and Sept 4, with Thirsty Thursday on June 19, July 17, Aug 21, and Sept 18. The Thursday Farmers Market and Discover Downtown Thursdays both run Thursdays, April 9 through October 8, 2026, and are the way to venture from the market into downtown for happy hours, specials and more.
The practical read for a homeowner already in Livermore: this year is the first in a while where a Thursday walk downtown has both a market and a themed merchant night stacked on the same evening from April through October. That is the calendar that will let you actually try Slice House, then Zachary's, then Le Nocturne without needing to plan a special outing for each.
The Bankhead's summer at 2400 First
The other anchor on First Street is the Bankhead Theater at 2400 First. Its summer bookings run tight to the restaurant openings.
Family programming leans on a long SpongeBob run. Adult programming picks up in late July and August. The Bankhead calendar for summer 2026 includes the George Bowen Guitar Summit on Friday, July 24 at 7:00pm, and Masters of Illusion on Saturday, August 22 at 8:00pm. Lyle Lovett is scheduled for Saturday, August 29 at 6:00pm. That Lyle Lovett date matters because it is not a standard tour stop.
Livermore Valley Arts has announced the 2026–2027 Bankhead Presents season through February, which will start officially on August 29, 2026, with the new annual fundraiser Opening Night at the Bankhead starring four-time Grammy Award winner Lyle Lovett, American country singer-songwriter icon, and actor. Tickets for shows in the 2026–2027 Bankhead Presents season are available by calling 925-373-6800, or at the Box Office windows, Wednesday through Saturday from 12 pm noon to 6 pm at 2400 First Street in Downtown Livermore.
Read alongside the restaurant map, Aug. 29 is the night the new First Street lines up cleanly. Season opener at the Bankhead, dinner within a five-minute walk at any of the concepts that were not on the block a year ago, and the Sunday Farmers Market waiting the next morning at the plaza.
A walkable summer plan, if you want one
You do not need a strategy to enjoy this summer downtown. If you want one anyway, here is the version the calendar supports.
- Pick a Thursday between June and September. The market runs from mid-afternoon through evening, and downtown merchants set specials for that night.
- Time dinner to whichever concept you have not tried. Slice House pulls families in early. Zachary's deep-dish takes longer than you think. Le Nocturne turns into a supper club after 9pm and is the only late option that fits that description on First Street.
- Add a Bankhead night in July or August as the anchor. The George Bowen Guitar Summit on July 24 and Masters of Illusion on Aug. 22 are the two straightforward weekend picks. Aug. 29 is the season opener and will draw the biggest downtown crowd of the summer.
- Circle back to Railroad Avenue in the fall. If The Storehouse opens on schedule, the block behind First Street becomes a second walkable node for the first time in years.
For a longtime Livermore homeowner, the underlying story is that the streetscape you have walked for a decade is being partially rewritten by operators who already know the Tri-Valley, at rents that only certain kinds of concepts can sustain. That is a market signal about the health of downtown, and it will show up in the value of the residential blocks a short walk away long before it shows up in any listing description.
If you are thinking about what your home is worth in a downtown that keeps drawing chef-driven concepts and season-anchored programming, Fracisco Realty and Investments has been watching this block for four generations. Get Your Instant Home Valuation when you are ready, and we will read the neighborhood-level story into the number.
