The Santa Cruz Avenue Block Where Fourth Fridays Plays Could Get Its Cars Back

"We are seeing literally hundreds of people coming not just from Menlo Park, but from the surrounding area, to our downtown." Marnie Foody, chair of the Downtown Menlo Fund, said this to the City Council on Oct. 13, according to The Almanac. She was talking about Fourth Fridays, the free monthly music night whose main stage sits in the middle of the closed 600 block of Santa Cruz Avenue.

Most of the council still came away from that session favoring a pilot that would reopen the block's eastbound lane to cars.

That puts the stretch between Curtis Street and Doyle Street in an odd spot. In 2026 it finally had the kind of event programming the city's plaza concepts had imagined for it. In the same year, the council started questioning whether the plaza should stay at its current size.

Six Years of a Temporary Street

The block has been closed to eastbound traffic since 2020. The original purpose was to give downtown restaurants and shops more outdoor space during the pandemic. The council made the arrangement formal on Aug. 29, 2023, with Resolution No. 6860, which closed the eastbound side between Curtis and Doyle "for enhanced outdoor communal space and outdoor dining opportunities," as the city's plaza page describes it.

The block's daily users shaped what happened next. In June 2025 the council voted to keep the block closed. The Almanac's coverage of that vote reported that Hillview students gathered at the tables after school. One student told the council they used the block almost every day to eat, talk and bike safely. The same article quoted Ali El Safy, who owns Bistro Vida and Bar Loretta on the block. He had put umbrellas over the tables and said the space benefited the community more than it did his business financially.

The current layout is simple. The city page lists temporary picnic tables and planters. The Streetary outdoor dining area sits in the on-street parking spaces along restaurant frontage. A bike lane runs through the block. About 2,500 square feet of the closed lane is available for programming, and another 1,200 or so between the dining area and the bike lane is recommended as a pedestrian walkway. The council's "community living room" concept from July 2025 went further, with flexible seating, shade sails, string lights, roadway art and a possible stage.

The Season That Gave the Plaza a Stage

Those 2,500 square feet got their first regular programming from the Downtown Menlo Fund. The 501(c)(3) was formed in late 2025 by Laura Melahn, Marnie Foody, Ben Eiref and Paul Charrette to work with businesses, the city and the community on downtown events, beautification and advocacy. On the Fund's Fourth Fridays page, the 600 block plaza and the Cafe Borrone plaza are the two anchor stages, with smaller acts spread along Santa Cruz Avenue from 6 to 9 p.m.

The season opened July 24, as InMenlo reported ahead of the launch, and InMenlo's previews of the August 28 and September 25 nights named the acts in the table above. The Fund's own page also calls that night the season opener. The October lineup shows how the series uses the block. The Plaza Stage was booked for line dancing, which needs open pavement. The kids' stage was placed in the corridor near Chase Bank, Aveda, Susie Cakes and Cheeky Monkey.

Foody told the council that downtown business owners had reported sales jumping during Fourth Fridays. She said removing the plaza would limit the Fund's ability to keep hosting the event, and that "we had hoped to build our series to a full schedule of events in 2027."

The Fund's page now lists dates from July through October and nothing after Oct. 23.

Three Configurations, One Pilot

Councilmember Drew Combs framed the decision as a choice among three versions of the block. He proposed piloting the middle one for six months to a year and comparing the results with the current plaza and with the pre-COVID layout that had both lanes open.

Under the hybrid, the gathering area would move into the parking-space strip, which is where the Streetary dining area sits today. A stage, a line-dancing floor and a cluster of after-school tables would all have to fit into a narrower band beside moving traffic.

Combs described the timing openly, as quoted by The Almanac: "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."

Mayor Betsy Nash said she had done a "complete 180" over the previous month. She cited trash and blight around the plaza, and the chance that a closed Santa Cruz Avenue could get in the way of construction on nearby projects. Those include a proposed six-story residential building at 800 Oak Grove Ave. and the city's effort to build housing on three downtown parking lots. She also told the council: "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."

Councilmember Jeff Schmidt was the one member who wanted to keep going with the permanent plaza. He argued that a pilot would unsettle a plan that was nearly finished:

"We've done all this work, we've sunk some cost into this thing, and we're a year away. It's almost like dropping the ball at the 10-yard line before you score a goal."

What Has Been Spent, and What Is Still Undecided

According to The Almanac's Oct. 15 report, city staff have spent about $61,000 on furniture and $30,000 on a consultant to design the permanent plaza, which leaves about $250,000 for the project. Economic Development Director Collette Hanna said the current plans had construction finishing by the end of 2027. The furniture spending goes back to a November 2025 study session, when the council picked contemporary pieces that included a picnic table and movable round metal tables. The order came from DuMor, Inc.

Combs' pilot would run 6 to 12 months, and the plaza's construction had been set to finish at the end of 2027. A pilot that starts in 2027 could therefore end close to the date the permanent plaza was supposed to be done. Any decision after the pilot would belong to whichever council is seated then, which is the "new council in a year" Combs mentioned.

The Oct. 13 session gave direction only. The city's agenda listed the item as a study session seeking direction on the block's configuration or closure, not as an action item. City Manager Justin Murphy said the next step is a council vote on reopening the lane at a future meeting. The tentative agenda-topics list released with the Oct. 13 packet covered the Oct. 27 and Nov. 10 meetings and did not include the vote. The city notes that topics can shift during agenda preparation. The Almanac also said it is unclear how long a switch to the smaller layout would take.

The Block Between Now and a Vote

Until the council votes, the block stays as it is, with the eastbound lane closed, the tables out and the Streetary along the restaurant frontage. The businesses facing it include Stacks at 600 Santa Cruz, Kyosho Sushi at 605, Menlo Cafe at 620, Bar Loretta at 639, Bistro Vida at 641 and Cheeky Monkey Toys at 640, according to the Downtown Menlo Fund's business directory.

The next large downtown gathering is on the city's calendar. The city's Light Up the Season runs Friday, Dec. 4, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Fremont Park, at University Drive and Santa Cruz Avenue. It includes youth performances, family entertainment, a limited supply of free hot cocoa and the tree lighting, and it goes ahead rain or shine. The city's listing encourages people to shop and dine downtown while they are there.

The plaza question will return as a vote on the eastbound lane, whenever it reaches an agenda. Meeting agendas and packets are posted on the city's agendas and minutes page, and project updates are on the 600 block plaza page.

At Luxuriant Realty, we follow decisions like this one block by block, because a change in how a downtown street works affects every address near it. If you own near Santa Cruz Avenue and want to talk through what the 600 block's next layout could mean for your property, request a personalized consultation with our team.