Monrovia's Canyon Is Back, and Old Town's Restaurant Row Has Quietly Turned Over

By 6 p.m. on a Friday, Myrtle Avenue is already closed to cars. Vendor tents go up between Lemon and Olive, a farmers market table sets out stone fruit next to a jewelry booth, and somewhere near the main stage a band is tuning up before the dinner crowd shows. If you've lived in Monrovia for more than a summer, none of that surprises you. The Friday Night Family Street Fair has been the city's answer to "what are we doing tonight" for longer than most residents have owned their houses.

What might surprise you is what's changed around it. For the better part of five years, the other half of a typical Monrovia weekend, the hike up to the falls in Monrovia Canyon Park, was simply off the table. It reopened in the summer of 2025. And in the time it was gone, the restaurant lineup on Myrtle turned over enough that the names locals used to rattle off without thinking aren't the same names topping the list today. Two pieces of a normal Monrovia weekend went quiet and came back changed at almost the same time, and a lot of residents are still operating on the old version of both.

The Canyon Reopened Nearly Five Years After the Bobcat Fire

The closure traces back to September 2020, when the Bobcat Fire burned more than 115,000 acres across Los Angeles County, including 278 acres in Monrovia. The fire itself didn't level the park, but the rainstorms that followed did most of the damage: runoff carried fire debris into the canyon, filling culverts, toppling trees, and washing dirt across the roadways that lead to the trailheads. Cleanup turned into a full infrastructure rebuild, and the city council approved a formal enhancement project in 2023, with groundbreaking in April 2024.

Monrovia Canyon Park reopened to the public on June 27, 2025, per the park's current trail listing. The rebuild added more than the original footprint back: the city says parking capacity now sits above 100 spots, up from the previous 87, with new ADA spaces added near the cabin, and conduit was run under the park roads so water pumps and emergency alarms stay connected during closures or storms going forward.

The part that trips people up is the reservation system. It applies to weekend visits, not every day of the week. If you're planning around a Saturday or Sunday, book online first or you may not get past the gate. A weekday morning hike, by contrast, is still the easiest way to have the trail to yourself.

One more timing note worth knowing before you drive up this month: the waterfall itself is seasonal. Trail guides describe it running strongest in winter and note it can go completely dry heading into fall. An August hike to Monrovia Falls is a good call for shade and a workout under the oak and sycamore canopy. It is not the month to expect a dramatic waterfall photo.

The Fair Never Left, It Just Runs an Hour Later Right Now

While the canyon sat behind construction fencing, the Friday Night Family Street Fair kept going without interruption, which is probably part of why its return to full strength barely registered as news. It's been running for more than two decades and the organizers describe it as one of the largest weekly events of its kind in the state. Main Street closes to traffic, a certified farmers market anchors one stretch, a kid zone runs jumpers and a petting zoo, and live music plays from a main stage while local restaurants and food vendors work the crowd.

The detail that actually changes month to month is the schedule. Fall and winter hours run 5 to 9 p.m. In spring and summer, the fair stretches to 10 p.m. Right now, in August, you're on the later schedule, which means there's more room in an evening than you'd have in December if you want to hike earlier in the day and still make it downtown before the fair wraps.

Old Town's Restaurant Row Has New Names Nobody Was Mentioning Two Years Ago

Here's where the turnover really shows. Reviews from a couple of years back point people toward a familiar rotation: Sam's Kabob Room, Jake's BBQ, Wingstop, and SierraCup for frozen yogurt. Look at the current best-of list for Monrovia restaurants and almost none of those names appear at the top anymore. The current lineup includes The Diplomat Eatery and Tavern, Seoul Alley, Girasol Cocina Mexicana, Kin Khao, The Peach Cafe, and Shlap Muan, alongside Café de Olla and Sena on Myrtle, the two names that show up on both the older and newer lists.

Basin 141 Social Bar & Kitchen, the gastropub on Myrtle Avenue, is still open and still listed in Old Town Monrovia's own business directory. It hasn't closed. It's just no longer the newest thing on the block, which is a different story than the one a two-year-old review would tell you.

Some of that churn traces back to what's happening two blocks from Myrtle. The city's own economic development page notes that MODA at Monrovia Station and the Areum Apartments have opened near the Gold Line stop, part of more than 1,000 housing units planned within a two-block radius of a station that averages roughly 1.5 million rider boardings a month. More households living within walking distance and more transit riders passing through on an average month means more foot traffic for a restaurant to draw on, and also more competition for that same foot traffic. Not every concept that opens near Myrtle survives contact with it, which is a quieter explanation for why the list keeps changing than any single opening or closing would suggest on its own.

Putting a Weekend Together This Month

If you're deciding how to spend a Saturday or a Friday night in Monrovia right now, the reopened canyon and the refreshed restaurant row actually fit together better than either did on its own a few years ago.

A weekday morning works best for the hike if you want to skip the reservation question, and you should go in expecting a shaded walk more than a rushing waterfall this time of year. Friday, with the fair running until 10 p.m. through the summer, there's enough runway to grab dinner from one of the newer kitchens on Myrtle, whether that's a plate from Girasol or a bowl at Seoul Alley, and still catch the last of the live music. Saturday morning, the market mood on Myrtle turns lighter and more browsing than event, a good pace for coffee and a walk before the day heats up.

This is only the second summer since the reopening that both halves of a normal Monrovia weekend, the trail and the table, are running on the same calendar without a closure sign attached to one of them.

Why This Is Worth Knowing If You Already Live Here

Knowing your own neighborhood changed is different from reading about it somewhere else. It's the difference between answering a friend's "what should we do this weekend" text with something specific and current, versus repeating whatever you remember from three summers ago. Old Town's restaurant lineup and the canyon's reopening are both the kind of detail that only shows up if you're paying attention to the place you're actually in.

If you're at the point where you're thinking past this particular weekend, whether that means finally trying the restaurant everyone keeps mentioning or wondering how a different pocket of Old Town might fit your life, we've also written about how Monrovia's historic core compares to its newer subdivisions in Historic and Newer Homes in Monrovia: Key Differences.

The Mark & Al Team has spent more than 35 years watching how small shifts like a reopened trailhead or a turned-over restaurant row change the way a neighborhood actually lives day to day. If you're weighing whether a different part of Monrovia or the surrounding foothills fits your next chapter, request a free home valuation or consultation and we'll walk you through it, block by block.