For five years the walk from China Beach out to Merrie Way has ended at the same quiet vacancy: a 29,500-square-foot neoclassical building above Sutro Baths, dark since December 2020, with the white lettered signage taken down and the decks empty. Residents have gotten used to it. The Coastal Trail became a pure landscape walk, punctuated only by the Sutro ruins and, if you wanted a coffee at the end, the counter at the Seal Rock Inn on Point Lobos.
That stasis has an expiration date. The reporting from late 2025 is specific enough that a Sea Cliff resident can now plan around it rather than treat it as rumor. What follows is what the western edge of the neighborhood is likely to look like in the second half of 2026, why the name survived, and how the daily walk changes before anything opens.
What Is Actually Opening, and When
The current leaseholder is Alexander Leff, operating through Sutro Lands End Partners, LLC, on a twenty-year lease from the National Park Service. His stated plan for the building has expanded from three food operations to four, plus a gift shop:
- A street-level cafe with coffee, tea, pastries, and deck seating over the ocean and the Sutro Bath ruins
- A high-end seafood restaurant
- A family-style burger operation
- A fourth restaurant, concept still to be determined
- A San Francisco themed gift shop
The timeline is staged. The cafe is the earliest piece and could open as soon as summer 2026, with the fuller reopening targeted for late 2026. Restoration costs have been estimated at $20 to $25 million, and the two decks are being renovated with heaters and wind and rain protection so the seating actually holds up to the site's weather. Mary Hountalas, who ran the previous Cliff House with her husband Dan until 2020, has publicly called the late-2026 date optimistic given how much the building deteriorated during vacancy.
For a resident, the practical read is this: expect a cafe stop back on the trail sometime in summer, and treat the full restaurant reopening as a fourth-quarter event that could still slip.
Why the Name Survived
When the Hountalases left in 2020, they took the trademark, the recipes, the social accounts, and the white lettered sign with them. For most of the intervening years it looked as though the next operator would open under a different name, because the Hountalases held the mark and were not willing to release it freely.
That changed in November 2025. The family donated the entire package to the Western Neighborhoods Project, a local nonprofit historic preservation group. Any future operator now licenses the Cliff House name through WNP rather than negotiating with a private family. The sign is expected to return to the facade relatively soon, and the licensing conversation between WNP and Leff is ongoing.
The practical effect for the neighborhood is continuity of identity. What reopens will still be called the Cliff House, and the memorabilia trail from Adolph Sutro forward stays intact under a nonprofit rather than being privately controlled.
That matters if you live west of 25th Avenue and have watched the building for a decade. The reopening is not a rebrand. It is a resumption.
How the Walk From China Beach Reads Now
The Sea Cliff-side entry to the Coastal Trail begins at China Beach and connects up to El Camino Del Mar and the trailhead behind the Palace of the Legion of Honor. From there the path runs west along the bluffs about a mile and a half to the Merrie Way lot above the ruins. There are a few things worth naming that shift the experience for someone doing this walk two or three times a week.
The paved and ADA-accessible section runs from the Lands End Lookout Visitor Center out to the Mile Rock Overlook. East of Mile Rock the trail becomes uneven, with the well-known stair sections and the cypress corridor above the shipwreck line. The three wrecks visible at low tide from the overlooks are the Lyman Stewart from 1922, the Frank Buck from 1927, and the Ohioan from 1937. Eagle's Point Overlook, closer to the Sea Cliff side, is the cleaner Golden Gate framing on the walk. The heart-shaped rock lookout sits just past the Sutro ruins on the western end.
One piece of infrastructure that shapes the walk in a way most guides miss: there is no public restroom at the eastern end of the trail. The nearest facilities are the porta potties at China Beach and the visitor center at the far western end. Residents doing the full loop tend to know this. Guests brought along on a Saturday morning walk usually do not.
The Merrie Way End, in the Meantime
Until the cafe opens, the only walkable food or drink near the western trailhead is the restaurant at the Seal Rock Inn on the corner of Point Lobos Avenue and 48th Avenue, open 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. for breakfast and lunch. That is it. If the parking lot at Merrie Way is full, the two overflow options are the Palace of the Legion of Honor lot at the opposite end of the trail and the USS San Francisco Memorial lot at West Fort Miley, both of which also work as alternate trailheads.
For orientation, here is how the anchors along the western edge sit right now and how they are likely to sit after the reopening.
| Anchor | Current Status | After the Reopening |
|---|---|---|
| Cliff House building | Vacant since Dec 2020, restoration underway | Cafe, three restaurants, gift shop under licensed Cliff House name |
| Sutro Baths ruins | Open, walkable, tide-dependent | Unchanged, but with a cafe deck directly above |
| Seal Rock Inn Restaurant | Only walk-to option, 8–2 daily | Still there; no longer the only option |
| Sutro Heights Park | Open, quiet, Adolph Sutro's former estate | Unchanged |
| Lands End Lookout Visitor Center | Open, small cafe and restrooms | Unchanged, but the destination cafe shifts down the hill |
The two things not on that table but worth holding in mind: San Francisco City Guides still runs a free volunteer-led Lands End tour, and porpoises, sea lions, and seabirds remain regular sightings from the bluff line above Point Lobos.
What To Watch Between Now and the Ribbon
A few concrete markers will tell a resident whether the timeline is holding.
The first is the sign. The white lettered Cliff House signage is expected to return to the facade before any interior operation opens. If the sign is back on by spring 2026, the summer cafe date is credible. If it is not, the timeline is slipping again.
The second is the licensing agreement between the Western Neighborhoods Project and Leff. As of the November 2025 reporting, WNP and Leff were in discussion on a broader partnership arrangement. That deal needs to close for the reopening to actually use the name.
The third is deck construction. The two upper decks are being rebuilt with weather protection, and that work is visible from the Merrie Way overlook. Progress there is easier to read from a walk than any press release.
For a neighborhood that treats the coastal trail as part of its living room rather than a tourist attraction, the shift is not dramatic. It is a return of one specific texture, at the far end of a walk residents already do. A coffee stop where there has not been one, and eventually a dinner reservation with the same address the neighborhood has known since 1909.
For those thinking about a home in Sea Cliff or already living within a few blocks of El Camino Del Mar and China Beach, this reopening is one of the small hinges that make the western edge of the neighborhood feel settled again. To discuss what a residence in Seacliff looks like from an advisory perspective, request a private consultation with Tania Toubba and experience the artistry of real estate.
