"There's already so much great built-in programming there: trivia, live music," Sam Ghadiri told the Mountain View Voice in May, when he explained why Laughing Monk Brewing had come to State Street Market. He was describing a food hall. He could just as easily have been describing the downtown holiday season, because nearly every December event in Los Altos takes place within a short walk of that hall's front door.
The Los Altos Village Association's season calendar uses two addresses. One is Veterans Community Plaza, at the corner of Main and State. The other is State Street Market, at 170 State St. In 2026 the food hall at 170 State St. added a new bar and a renamed counter, and it is the site of a bakery planned to supply three other towns.
Thursday evenings on State Street pass from one market to the next
This year's last State Street farmers market was Thursday, October 29, from 4 to 8 p.m., with a Fall Fest, music and food vendors. Six weeks later, the same street, the same weekday and the same four-hour window come back under a different name. The Downtown Holiday Market runs Thursday, December 10, and again Thursday, December 17, from 4 to 8 p.m. The Village Association bills it as a European-style night market with live music, Santa visits and gifts and stocking stuffers from local vendors.
The market's calendar listing gives State Street Market as its location. That makes the food hall's tenants the market's permanent neighbors, the businesses that are open before the stalls go up and after they come down. That roster is where most of the year's change happened.
Inside the hall, a new bar and a new counter
In March, Laughing Monk Brewing took over the space Murdoch's Bar had held. The brewery is run by Ghadiri, president of Bedrock Restaurant Group, who acquired the San Francisco-based brand and has been running it since 2023. According to the Mountain View Voice, the Los Altos bar pours nine beers, a cider and two draft cocktails, with a mixed list that includes a lychee martini, a mezcal Negroni and a black Manhattan. Zero-proof drinks include a prickly pear spritz and hibiscus tea. Ghadiri told the paper that to-go cocktails had become popular during the downtown farmers market. The bar was built with a Thursday street market next door in mind, so the Holiday Market fits the same pattern.
The second change came in mid-May. Miko's CALiTALIA became Konjoe Eatery, and owner Joey Camacho added barbecue-themed sandwiches, fries and pizza. The Los Altos Town Crier reported that Konjoe Eatery operates separately from Konjoe Burger, its neighbor in the hall.
The rest of the vendors on the hall's current menu pages:
- Little Blue Door
- The Penny Ice Creamery
- Konjoe Burger and Konjoe Eatery
- Little Sky Bakery
- Orenchi Ramen and Orenchi Sushi
- The Good Salad
- IKUKA
- Laughing Monk Brewing
The bakery built to supply other towns
The largest project at 170 State St. is Coffeebar. Founder and CEO Greg Buchheister started the company in Truckee in 2010, and the Town Crier reported that Los Altos is its 11th store and fourth in the Bay Area. The layout is unusual. A baking production center sits near the front, between Third and State streets, and according to Buchheister in the Town Crier, it is designed to produce baked goods for Coffeebar's Menlo Park, Sunnyvale and Redwood City stores. The layout also includes a separate patio seating area. "You queue up right in front of all the pastries and get your coffee," Buchheister told the paper. Pastries baked at this corner are intended for shelves in three other cities, which gives the block a role outside Los Altos as well.
Four events, two addresses
Here is the season in order. Every event is within a block of Main and State.
- Friday, November 13, 5 to 9 p.m. The 23rd Annual Holiday Stroll spreads across downtown with lights, strolling carolers and shopping specials at shops and restaurants.
- Saturday, November 28. Small Business Saturday. Stop by Veterans Community Plaza between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. for a thank-you item. The Village Association counts more than 140 restaurants, boutiques and salons downtown.
- Friday, December 4, 6 to 8 p.m. The Holiday Tree Celebration at Veterans Community Plaza, with performances by local students, trolley car rides around downtown and Santa photos until 8 p.m. The listing asks families to bring their own camera.
- Thursdays, December 10 and 17, 4 to 8 p.m. The Holiday Market on State Street.
The Stroll is the only event that spreads across the whole downtown. The other three fall into a familiar order. The plaza holds the daytime and ceremonial events, and State Street holds the evening market. The plaza sits at the corner where Main meets State, so a family at the tree lighting on December 4 is a short walk from the food hall's counters.
Main Street's year happened one storefront at a time
Main Street changed in 2026 too, but differently. Each change took place in its own space.
Haru Japanese Restaurant opened May 22 at 325 Main St., in the space Bevri used to occupy. Chef-owner Gavin Liang's team also runs Sushi Jin in Mountain View, and the Mountain View Voice reported a menu of gozen set meals and sushi, plus a full bar. A few doors away, Tre Monti at 270 Main St. served its final customers May 2, after owner Giovanni Messina's run there. The Clickaway service center at 357 Main St. has closed and now sends customers to its Campbell location.
On Main Street, a single change means one storefront closes or opens. In the food hall, a change means one counter in a shared room turns over while the bar, the seating and the Thursday evening crowd stay put. When Murdoch's became Laughing Monk, the State Street Market name remained. That continuity explains why State Street can carry a holiday market four hours at a time without the season depending on any single tenant.
The plaza stays as it is for at least a few more seasons
The City of Los Altos is planning a downtown park, and the project could eventually change the setting for all of this. For now, the plan is still a concept. At its February 24, 2026 discussion, the City Council told the design team not to pursue underground parking and to look at replacement parking options that keep the parking supply the same or better. "Meadow" and "Garden" came out as the preferred design themes. The project site gives a conservative timeline of four or more years, with two-plus years of design and two-plus years of possible construction. No construction start date has been set.
The street improvements are already in. The same page lists five ADA-compliant parking stalls on Main Street, reconditioning along the corridor, wider bike lanes, high-visibility crosswalks and fresh pavement markings. For the Stroll, the tree lighting and the two Thursday markets, the setting is the familiar one: the plaza at Main and State, the State Street frontage, and a food hall that changed its tenants this year while keeping its place on the calendar.
At The Habibi Group, we watch how a downtown block like this one changes because it shapes daily life on the streets around it. If you're weighing how Los Altos's town center fits your plans for the years ahead, Book a Confidential Real Estate Consultation and we'll go through it with you, block by block.
