August in Bellingham: A Local's Read on the Month Ahead

If you have lived here more than a season, you already know August in Bellingham runs on a weekly rhythm. Monday trivia at Zeeks. Tuesday concerts on the Barkley Green. Wednesdays on Bay Street. A Saturday film in Fairhaven. The rhythm itself is not new. What has changed this year is the map underneath it.

State Street has quietly become the center of gravity, and if your muscle memory still sends you to the old Boundary Bay corner or to Starla's for a Friday pizza, this is the month to update it.

State Street, redrawn

Two of the biggest turnovers in downtown dining landed within weeks of each other this spring, and both replacements are now open.

Starla's, the natural wine and pizza bar run by Bellingham native Jordan Koplowitz and Christy Wyble, closed March 28, with the duo announcing plans to move back to Seattle and open Starla's there. The space at 1149 N State Street did not sit dark for long. Corey Silversmith, formerly of Makeworth Coffee, took the keys and opened Pendino, a pizza and cocktail concept named for his great-grandfather, who emigrated from Naples. Silversmith has said he wants the room to feel like a new restaurant, vibrant and lively, with a totally original menu, and the dough has been reworked for a lighter, chewier crust. The cocktail program, led by bartender Anneke Mulder, leans on familiar but quietly complex drinks, including a Tiramisu Espresso Martini built on house cold brew.

A few blocks north, the other change is more emotional. Boundary Bay Brewery closed last September, and its offshoot, Boundary on State, opened June 10 as a new restaurant and bar offshoot of the closed brewery. It carries forward menu items and beers people had been drinking for two decades, from baked brie and smoked salmon chowder to paninis. The address is 954 N. State St., open noon to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Shorter hours, same neighborhood, familiar pours.

Two blocks apart, both on State, both replacing well-loved rooms. It is the tightest cluster of new-old downtown reopenings in recent memory, and it is why August feels different this year even if the weekly calendar looks familiar.

A quiet footnote on the same stretch: Bellingham's Denny's on Samish Way permanently closed at the end of March, and a new Can Am Pizza opened May 18 at 1251 Lincoln St Suite 106, near Fred Meyer and Whole Foods. The turnover is not confined to State.

The weekly rhythm, if you actually live here

Print this out or screenshot it. Every one of these is happening this month and most are free.

The Tuesday Tunes lineup for the rest of August is worth planning around. Aug 4 brings the Stapletones playing classic and modern country, benefiting Brigid Collins, and Aug 18 features The Walrus playing classic rock, benefiting Brigadoon Service Dogs. Each concert is presented by a local business and channels proceeds to a Bellingham nonprofit, which is a nicer way to spend a Tuesday than most.

For film in Fairhaven, the two dates I would put on the calendar are Labyrinth on Aug 1 and Princess Bride on Aug 8. Bring the low chairs. The lawn slopes.

What is ending, and what is just starting

The weekly summer scaffolding does not run through Labor Day. Some pieces wrap in early August, others carry into September, and a few things worth catching only start later in the month.

Ending soon. Downtown Sounds finishes its five-Wednesday run on August 5, closing out a series that has been folding five city blocks of Bay, Holly, and Prospect Streets into a music festival for more than 20 years. Miss the last night and you wait until next July.

Running through August. Tuesday Tunes at Barkley Village goes to Aug 25. Trivia on the Patio at Kulshan Sunnyland runs until Sept 1. The Wednesday brewers' cruise out of the Bellingham Cruise Terminal continues through Sept 9.

Just starting. First Friday is Friday, Aug 7, in downtown Bellingham, and it will pair well with the SeaFeast Paint & Sip the same evening. That Paint & Sip runs 5 to 7 p.m. at the Working Waterfront Coalition of Whatcom County office at Squalicum Harbor, guiding participants through an Art Nouveau shrimp painting. It is the kind of small, specific thing you either hear about from a friend or miss entirely.

Two weeks later, Bellingham SeaFeast opens Creative Currents, a juried exhibition marking the organization's tenth year. It runs August 22 through October 25 at Cordata Gallery, 465 W Stuart Road, bringing together regional artisans in painting, sculpture, fiber, and craft meditating on the Salish Sea and the working waterfront. The full SeaFeast is later, Saturday, Sept 26, at Squalicum Harbor, but Creative Currents is the quiet, unhurried way in.

A few other August notes

The chain conversation keeps coming up because Chick-fil-A opened April 30 near Bellis Fair at 4030 Cordata Parkway and Can Am Pizza followed in May. That is real, and it changes the north end of town. But most of what is actually on the August calendar this year sits at independent rooms: Kulshan, Fountain, Aslan Depot, Schweinhaus, Beach Cat, Boundary on State, Pendino. A resident planning the month at those places will barely notice the chain buildout unless they are driving Cordata.

One small piece of local trivia worth carrying: The Working Waterfront Coalition is headquartered at Squalicum Harbor, and once you know the office is there, you notice how much of Bellingham's summer programming loops through it. SeaFeast is the visible tip. The paint-and-sips, the exhibitions, the harbor tours: all of it grows out of that one small building on the marina.

The August thesis, in one line

August in Bellingham is not a month of one big festival. It is a month of small standing appointments. What has changed this year is that two of those standing appointments, Starla's and Boundary Bay, are gone, and the rooms taking their place are still writing their own habits. The best month to help them write those habits is this one.

If you have been in your house long enough to know which corner of the Barkley Green catches the last of the evening light, or which Wednesday at Downtown Sounds gets the biggest crowd, this is your city doing the thing it does best. Show up. Bring the folding chair. Try the Tiramisu Espresso Martini once so you can have an opinion on it.

And when you are ready to talk about your own place in this town, whether that is a first house, a move up the hill, or a piece of land you have been thinking about for a while, Cicchitti Real Estate has been working these neighborhoods since 2005. Call or email Christine for a free local market consult and personalized next steps.