Sunset Dunes Is Staying: A Winter Calendar for the Old Great Highway and the Cafés Near Its Entrances

Adam Browning lives on La Playa Street, a few doors from Java Beach Café, and in 2024 he voted against Prop. K, the measure that closed the Upper Great Highway to cars. This month he voted against Prop. G, which would have reopened the road to cars on weekdays. He told The San Francisco Standard why he changed his mind: "My concern was it was just going to be an empty highway. But the streetlights are getting removed, and there's a playground. It's shaping into a park."

His change of heart shows up in two places. One is the precinct map. The other is the sales records of the businesses a short walk from the sand. Both point the same way. Sunset Dunes wins over the people who see it up close, and its benefits stay just as close.

Support grew most in the precincts next to the park

Citywide, Prop. G failed with about 65 percent voting no, according to The Standard's election-night count. In 2024, Prop. K had passed with about 55 percent. That makes this the third citywide vote on the road since 2022. In 2022, voters also rejected Prop. I, which would have brought back full-time car traffic.

The bigger change was right next to the park. The Standard reported that all eight precincts bordering the Great Highway switched sides. Preliminary results show support for the park in those precincts rising from 40 percent in 2024 to 58 percent this year. In the same article, Allison Shafer, who works at the California Academy of Sciences, said she had opposed the original closure over traffic. Her verdict now: "I miss using it to commute, but the traffic nightmare never materialized." Tom Fenwick, another La Playa Street resident, supported the park from the start. He described how his friends came around: "Once they saw it, they could see what it is."

What those neighbors saw is a road that has become a park. The Standard reported that the city spent nearly $1 million adding a skate park, public art and a playground. The paper now calls Sunset Dunes the city's third most popular park, and it describes kids climbing on shipwreck-themed play structures.

District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong had backed Prop. G as a compromise. He told the Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon that he will keep "working with all residents and City departments to ensure the Sunset residents' concerns are heard and that practical improvements are made on the surrounding streets." The Standard also noted that some people who want the road reopened have promised more legal challenges and ballot measures.

The same pattern shows up in local sales

The park draws a lot of people. In March 2026, Rec and Park told The Standard it had counted 1.2 million visits since the April 12, 2025 opening, averaging 3,700 people on weekdays and 7,200 on weekends. The Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon puts the first full year at more than 1.7 million visits.

Those visitors have not spent evenly. In a March 2026 report, The Standard asked owners near the park how sales had changed since the road closed to cars on March 15, 2025. Cafés generally reported increases. Restaurants and retailers generally reported flat or lower sales.

The two Andytown figures make the point most clearly. It is the same company, selling the same coffee near the same beach. The Outer Sunset cafés near the park grew by double digits. The café north of the park stayed flat. Andytown CEO Lauren Crabbe told The Standard that the skate park and murals have brought tourists and people from around the city to the Sunset. Black Bird owner Kathryn Grantham said Tuesdays had been the shop's slowest day, and that book and coffee sales on Tuesdays are up 60 percent since the park opened. "It's been nuts," she said.

Why coffee gained and dinner didn't

The businesses that gained sell things people pick up on foot, like a coffee or a paperback. Julie Fulton of Galinette told The Standard that about 80 percent of her customers are regulars and locals, and that she doesn't see park visitors coming in for a bite, not even for the bistro's Le Burger. Her explanation: "It's the weather that leads to us being busy or not busy." Matt Lopez owns White Cap on Taraval and Pitt's Pub on Noriega. Pitt's rose by about $20,000 and White Cap fell by about the same amount, so his two bars came out even. Ben Wintroub of Tunnel Records on Taraval calls his shop a destination for record collectors rather than a place passersby wander into. He reported lower sales over the same period.

The longer trend helps explain these numbers. Mission Local reported on October 6, 2026 that sales tax revenue in the Inner Sunset has passed pre-pandemic levels. West of 19th Avenue, the Outer Sunset and Parkside have not caught up, with slight declines over the past two years in city data through the first quarter of 2026. Against that backdrop, the park's gains look real but concentrated. They go to the counters people pass on foot between the avenues and the beach.

A free calendar on the same scale

Friends of Sunset Dunes runs a program that matches how the park is used. The events are free, open to all ages and mostly in daylight, and each one is tied to a specific cross street. Here is what is listed from publication day through mid-December:

Chair Yoga and the Serenades are part of the Friends' Sundays at the Beach series. Yoga runs on the first Sunday of each month at Irving, and live music runs on the second Sunday at Judah. The December 12 Zumba class meets somewhere unusual: the Spinning Rock at Lawton, not the usual Irving spot. The December 13 cleanup has also moved. It now starts at the Taraval lounge instead of the Riptide, and the group says the cleanup location changes every month. Pickers, bags, gloves and vests are provided, and the cleanup is run with Refuse Refuse SF and the Civic Joy Fund. The Friends say events sometimes move, get rescheduled or are canceled. The events page has an RSVP form for last-minute updates, so check it the morning you go.

Several of these line up with the businesses in the table above. The Dec. 3 happy hour at Noriega sits on the same street as Pitt's Pub. The Dec. 13 cleanup is held a few blocks from White Cap, Galinette and Tunnel Records on Taraval.

The park, south to north

At opening, the San Francisco Chronicle's guide placed the main features along the two-mile road like this:

• Sloat Boulevard, the south end: Octavius the Octopus, a climbable mosaic sculpture by Peter Hazel that lights up at night. Just north of it are the skateboarding track and wooden bike ramps.
• Taraval Street: lounge chairs and hammocks.
• Rivera and Judah streets: the older restroom stations, with murals by Emily Fromm on the back walls.
• Lawton Street: the Spinning Rock, where the December 12 Zumba class meets.
• The north end: a butterfly-and-sea-lion mural painted by Josué Rojas and his crew.

A walk from Octavius to the Taraval hammocks takes you past most of the attractions Crabbe credited with drawing visitors. From there, Taraval Street leads inland to the corridor where the Standard's sales figures were mixed.

What the vote kept

The Standard reported that the city controller estimated reopening the road to cars would have cost $20 million over five years. Instead, this winter the park has a Wednesday dance class at Irving, Zumba by the Spinning Rock, and live music at Judah on the second Sunday, with a coffee at an Outer Sunset Andytown or at Black Bird on the way home.

I have spent my life in San Francisco, and the road that became Sunset Dunes has been on the ballot three times since 2022. If you live near the park and want to know how the change looks from your own street, from Lawton to Taraval, Dylan Hunter is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.