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

Peace Portal Drive doesn't look the way it did five summers ago. The wine bar in the old bank building, the sushi counter in what used to be Peace Arch City Café, the taphouse at the traffic circle collecting shelf after shelf of regional awards — the block has quietly turned into a walkable dinner district while most of us were watching the harbor.

That matters in August, because for the first time in a while, the maritime festival at the water and the restaurant row above it are close enough to treat as a single afternoon. This post is about how to actually use the month if you already live here.

The shift, in one sentence

For years, the argument for spending an August Saturday downtown was the harbor. The harbor is still the draw, but the reason to stay past 5 p.m. now lives four blocks uphill. Blaine has become known for its bustling restaurant row, where you'll find steak and ribs, farm to table oysters, a wine bar, and Italian, German, Japanese, Indian, Thai, Mexican and American, many of them with a harbor view. That density is new. Treat the day as one walk instead of two errands and August gets a lot longer.

A Saturday in early August, hour by hour

Here is the version of the day I'd run if I had out-of-town family visiting and only one afternoon.

8:30 a.m. — Coffee at Blackbird, the drive-thru off Exit 274, if you want to skip the downtown parking scramble before the market fills.

10:00 a.m. — The G Street Plaza swells with vendors at the Saturday farmers market. Do the loop, buy the tomatoes, keep moving.

11:00 a.m. — Walk down to Marine Drive. In Drayton Harbor Days years, the Blaine Harbor Boating Center at 235 Marine Drive runs 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with arts, crafts and food vendors, kids games, model boat displays, and the Prestigious George Raft Race on Saturday. In non-festival weekends it's still the best free waterfront to poke around.

12:30 p.m. — Oysters. Drayton Harbor Oyster Company's oysters are hand-picked from their tide-tumbled farm in Drayton Harbor, tide-to-table in about 13 minutes, and they run stew, sandwiches, and tacos too. Address is 685 Peace Portal Drive if you're routing on foot.

2:00 p.m. — Plover Ferry across the harbor from the Visitor's Dock, plus the Alaska Packers Association Museum at 9261 Semiahmoo Parkway, open 1 to 5 p.m. The ferry is the piece most people who moved here in the last two years still haven't done.

5:30 p.m. — Back downtown. Choose your dinner from the row below.

9:00 p.m. — Festival weekends end with an outdoor movie at Blaine Marine Park at 9 p.m., sponsored by Paso del Norte. Non-festival weekends, the seawall alone earns the walk.

Restaurant row, updated

If your mental map of Peace Portal Drive is a couple of years old, here's what's actually there now.

Ttowa Sushi, 658 Peace Portal Drive. Ttowa Sushi, an Asian fusion restaurant serving an extensive menu that includes sushi, yakisoba and ramen, celebrated its grand opening on June 7 at 658 Peace Portal Drive in downtown Blaine. The building was the former Peace Arch City Café, which closed March 30, and owner Justin Kim purchased it for $850,000 on April 2 according to Whatcom County Assessor data. The menu runs to roughly 100 items.

Gateway 1890 Taphouse & Grill, 429 Peace Portal Drive. The one everyone argues about, but the trophy case is real. In 2026 alone the taphouse pulled Gold Best Happy Hour, Gold Best Taphouse, Silver Best Bar Food, Silver Best Beer Selection, Silver Best Bloody Mary and Silver Best Chicken Wings from Cascades Best. Their Oktoberfest is late September, worth blocking on the calendar now.

Drayton Harbor Oyster Company, 685 Peace Portal Drive. See above. The patio is timber-clad and street-side, and the farm store sells live crab, shrimp, and mussels during restaurant hours, which is the underused move if you're cooking Sunday.

Jack Niemann's Black Forest Steak House. Classic American steak and seafood with some German specialties, and probably the most reliable rainy-night dinner in town.

Paso del Norte. Owner Miguel Ramos is back doing what he has done for 30 years, feeding the Blaine community, after a kitchen fire closed the restaurant for nearly a year. Long absence, quiet return.

Namaste The Royal Taste of India, 234 D Street. Chirag Prajapati's Namaste The Royal Taste of India opened at 234 D Street in Blaine in December 2023.

The Vault Bistro, Wine Bar & Event Space. The only downtown wine bar, in the old bank building.

Aloha Cafe. A Pacific Island themed restaurant with steady community support, run by Drisana Horton and her husband.

Border Town Pizza. Laura Massaro turned the former Pizza Factory into a family staple as Border Town Pizza, now run with her daughter Kara.

That's nine distinct kitchens inside a walkable stretch. Five years ago that number was closer to half.

August dates worth blocking off

A short list, drawn from what's actually scheduled or annually recurring:

• Sat, Aug 1 — Birch Bay Sand Sculpture Competition. Birch Bay's Annual Sand Sculpture Competition is Sat 01 Aug 2026 from 10:30 a.m. at Birch Bay Beach Park, 7930 Birch Bay Drive.
• Early August — Drayton Harbor Days / Maritime Festival. Annual, at the Blaine Harbor Boating Center. Historically the weekend hinges on tall ship visits, the 5K Run to the Border, Pirate Daze at the Marine Park playground, and the raft race. Check the chamber's calendar the week of for the current year's schedule.
• Every Saturday — Market by the Sea. One of the chamber's core community events, alongside the Art Studio Tours, the Old Fashioned 4th, Drayton Harbor Days, Holiday Harbor Lights, and Wings over Water.
• Second Saturday — Art Walk. Second Saturday Art Walk runs alongside the July and August market weekends.

If you have one weekend to spend on the water this month, make it the festival weekend. If you have four, spread them across the market Saturdays and pick a different dinner each time.

The Plover Ferry is the move most new residents miss

Here is the piece I'd argue is undersold if you've lived here less than five years. From Blaine Marine Park you can walk a dog along the beach and path to the fishing and crabbing pier, then return along the southside boardwalk past the commercial and recreational boats moored in the harbor. Halfway through that loop, at Gate 2, is the Plover.

The Historic Plover Ferry sails the 32-foot ferry's original route to Semiahmoo Spit, a route it has run since 1944. During festival weekends the schedule stretches — Saturday 12 to 8 p.m., Sunday 10 to 6 p.m. — and the crossing takes long enough to feel like a small trip and short enough to fit inside an afternoon. On the Semiahmoo side you land within walking distance of Packers Kitchen + Bar and the museum, which means you can build a full afternoon around a five-dollar suggested donation and a pair of ferry rides.

Most residents I talk to have done the ferry exactly once, usually with visiting family. Try it as a solo Sunday.

A few other August notes

The county closed a grant that matters here. A $1.8 million county grant is jump-starting Birch Bay Beach Park construction, so expect changes to the sand sculpture footprint in future years. Worth seeing this year's version at the current layout before that shifts.

Birch Bay Waterslides is on the market for $6 million, which is the kind of local business news that quietly reshapes what a Blaine summer looks like a decade out. Not something to plan around this month, but something to notice.

And if you have a car and thirty minutes, Beach Cat Brewing in the heart of Birch Bay runs small-batch brews with a rotation of food trucks and is open year-round. It's the pressure-release valve when downtown gets festival-loud.

The August thesis, in one line

Blaine used to be a harbor town with a few restaurants attached. This August it reads as a restaurant town with a harbor attached, and the walk between the two is the whole point.

If you're weighing a move, a sale, or a project inside Whatcom County and you want a read from someone who's been licensed here since 2005, Cicchitti Real Estate is a call or an email away. Christine offers a free local market consult and personalized next steps for buyers, sellers, and developers across Blaine, Ferndale, Bellingham, Lynden and the neighborhoods in between.