Something has shifted in Orange Beach over the last two years, and you can read it in the addresses. The old Bubba's Seafood pad is becoming mini golf. The former Sharky's building is turning into a ministry center. A stretch of beach that was once penciled in for another condo tower is now the first city-owned public beach. The town is quietly trading tower square footage for gathering space, and this summer's calendar of openings and events is where that shows up.
If you live here, that matters more than the "top 10 things to do" roundup a visitor would read. Here is a resident's map of what actually opened, what is worth a Tuesday night, and where the town is investing its beachfront.
The openings worth driving to
A handful of new places have come online recently or are opening this season. Skip the ones you already know about and look at these:
- Last Mango Bar & Chill at The Wharf. A Jimmy Buffett concept in Marlin Circle. The waterfront restaurant blends a coastal menu with a relaxed atmosphere and features fresh seafood, flatbreads, salads, sandwiches, and margaritas. If you have been avoiding The Wharf on weekends, the north side of Marlin Circle is the quieter approach.
- Old Salt Tavern, in the shopping center next to Wal-Mart. The space was Stephi's most recently, and Franco's Italian before that, and the new owners have reworked the facility. Made-from-scratch food in a room most locals had written off years ago.
- Red Havel Live. A family-owned bar and entertainment venue with a weekly music lineup. A working alternative to The Wharf Amphitheater on a night you do not want to pay a ticket price.
- Beach Girl at Legendary Marina. The drive-thru coffee shop opened a second location, useful for skipping the original's morning line or grabbing a cup before heading out on the water.
- Safari & Vine at the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. The owners of Portabella's Italian Restaurant in Foley took over the former Savannah space with what sounds like a global menu. The zoo becomes a legitimate dinner destination for the first time.
- Bubba's Seaside Mini Golf and Sweet Cone Alabama. Built on the old Bubba's Seafood site, with 18 ADA-compliant holes and an ice cream shop attached. The kind of place you park a grandparent and three kids at on a Sunday.
- Studio Cantrell Gallery and Frames, replacing Pink Pelican Art Gallery. The gallery is reopening under the new name in January 2026.
That is a lot of turnover for a town this size, and the pattern is not random. Almost every one of these fills a gap that visitors do not notice but residents do: a real coffee drive-thru on the north side, a family activity that is not the beach, a music room that seats a hundred people instead of a thousand.
The COASTAL story is really a land-use story
The clearest example of the shift sits at the corner of Perdido Beach Boulevard where COASTAL Orange Beach now operates. The property was once slated for condo towers before the City of Orange Beach reached an agreement with Orange Beach Land Company, and each side purchased 400 feet of beachfront, providing residents with the first city-owned beach. A designated resident parking area comes with it.
USA Today has since nominated COASTAL Orange Beach as one of the "Best Waterfront Restaurants" in the nation, with readers voting on the top pick. Whether it wins is beside the point. The point is that a piece of ground that could have been another 20-story building is instead a restaurant, a retail pad, and public beach access owned by the city you live in. Keep that in mind the next time you drive past and complain about the parking.
The summer calendar, filtered for residents
If you have lived here more than a season, the National Shrimp Festival and the Fourth of July are already on your calendar. The events below are the ones worth planning around because they either close roads, fill your favorite restaurant, or are genuinely good and easy to miss.
| Date | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| May 27 to July 31 | Perfect Game Gulf Coast World Series | Various fields, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach |
| June 2 | Jelly Roll with Kashus Culpepper, C Spire Concert Series | The Wharf Amphitheater |
| June 5 to 7 | Flora-Bama Annual Fishing Rodeo | Flora-Bama |
| July 4 | Fireworks from Gulf State Park Pier and The Wharf | Gulf Shores and Orange Beach |
| July 14 to 19 | Blue Marlin Grand Championship of the Gulf | The Wharf Marina, Marlin Circle, Main Street |
| August 8 | Sandstock, a 1960s beach party | Flora-Bama Lounge & Oyster Bar |
| August 15 | Classics in Wood & Ivory Cello & Piano Concert | Orange Beach, 6 PM |
A few notes that only matter if you actually live within earshot:
The Blue Marlin Grand Championship the week of July 14 to 19 is billed as the "Greatest Show in Sportfishing" and includes street parties, giveaways, live entertainment, and weigh-ins, with million-dollar boats arriving at the Marina and booths lining Main Street. Translation: The Wharf is not the place to grab a casual dinner that week. Book Cosmo's, Voyagers, or head west to Perdido Key.
The Perfect Game series runs a full nine weeks from late May through the end of July, hosting elementary through high school teams. That is a slow, steady baseline of hotel and restaurant demand from Memorial Day to August, which is why your favorite breakfast spot has a wait even on a Wednesday.
Nest Fest, in its third year, is a free family festival with live music, food, and exhibits from Gulf State Park, Alabama Audubon, and the City of Orange Beach Coastal Resources Department, all built around native shorebird conservation. The kind of Saturday morning that reminds you why you moved here.
The reef nobody is talking about
Buried in the July local news was a story worth knowing: the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources added the 408-foot Argosy VI to the state artificial reef system, deployed roughly 23 miles south of Orange Beach, with the former Indiana riverboat casino now resting on the Gulf floor.
If you have a boat or you charter one, that is a new dive and fishing structure inside a comfortable morning's run. If you do not, it is still a good piece of trivia for the next dinner where an out-of-town guest asks what makes Orange Beach different from any other beach town. The answer is that the Alabama reef program has been quietly building the largest artificial reef zone in the country off this coast for decades, and it just got 408 feet longer.
A quieter change, on Perdido Beach Boulevard
Flora-Bama Church Worship on Water is opening a Ministry Center in the old Sharky's and Live Bait restaurant building at 24281 Perdido Beach Blvd. Whether or not that is your community, the building is going back into active use rather than sitting boarded up through another hurricane season. That is a small win for the streetscape.
Add it to the list: COASTAL replacing a condo site, Bubba's Seaside Mini Golf replacing a restaurant that closed, Studio Cantrell replacing Pink Pelican, Old Salt Tavern reopening a space that had been through two operators. The town is turning over its inventory of built space faster than it is adding new towers, and the result is a summer that feels more textured than it did five years ago.
For the weekend
If you have one Saturday in July to spend at home, the resident version of a perfect day looks something like this: coffee from the new Beach Girl at Legendary Marina, a mid-morning walk through Waterfront Park during Nest Fest if the dates line up, lunch at Old Salt Tavern to see what the new owners did with the space, an afternoon at the new city-owned beach section by COASTAL, and dinner at Last Mango Bar & Chill with a slow walk around Marlin Circle before the Blue Marlin weigh-in crowds arrive. No boat required, no ticket required, nothing on that list existed in this form two summers ago.
When you or a neighbor is ready to talk about buying or selling in Orange Beach, Stacy Burgos Rodgers is around, dual-licensed in Alabama and Florida, and always happy to trade notes on which corner of town is quietly getting more interesting. Let's connect.
