Downtown Riverside Has Two Weeks Before the Lights Switch On, and New Arrivals Are Filling Them

When Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar opened reservations for its downtown Riverside location in October, it took five bookings in the first 10 minutes. Dewayne Glass, the operating partner, gave that figure to The Press-Enterprise. Fleming's opens Monday, Nov. 9. That is 12 days before the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa Festival of Lights brings hundreds of thousands of visitors downtown.

Fleming's is not the only project working to that deadline. The new Main Street Alley is expected to open before the festival. The Main Street Pedestrian Mall turns 60 this month, with an anniversary upgrade plan still in progress. The festival also adds a new ticketed site this year. Through mid-November, the new arrivals open into ordinary downtown streets. That changes on Saturday, Nov. 21.

The November calendar

On the calendar, the Veterans Parade on Nov. 14 is the last big downtown gathering before the festival begins. After the 21st, the festival sets the pace downtown through the end of the year.

A year of storefront turnover set this up

The Fleming's opening caps a year of change along the Main Street Mall and the blocks around it. The Riverside Downtown Partnership's August 2026 bulletin printed a Ward 1 update listing new cafés, restaurants and coffee shops either under construction or opening soon.

• Orange Tree Tables and Taps, 3744 Main St., held its grand opening July 7 in the former Retro on Main space, according to the Raincross Gazette.
• Notebook Cafe, 3512 Ninth St., soft-opened June 6 and held its grand opening June 13, as the Raincross Gazette reported.
• The Daily Café, 3607 Tenth St., was listed in August as "Opening any day now!"
• Slow Bloom Coffee, Hayet Albi Cooperative Bakery, Bistro & Wine Bar and Annie's Café at Imperial Hardware were all on the same list with summer 2026 targets.

Two spots closed during the same months. Bar Ni Modo announced its last day as Aug. 16. GoGo Bird at Farm House Collective, 1393 University Ave., was set to open Nov. 22, 2025, according to the Raincross Gazette, and the same paper reported its closure at the end of September. Most of 2026's arrivals are cafés and casual places. Fleming's is the large one.

Fleming's built its opening around the festival crowd

The restaurant is at the northeast corner of Mission Inn Avenue and Market Street, in a mixed-use development called the Mark on the former Stalder Building site. It covers 8,751 square feet and seats more than 275 guests. That puts a large dining room on Mission Inn Avenue, in the neighborhood the festival takes over from Nov. 21 to Jan. 3, as The Press-Enterprise describes it.

Glass told The Press-Enterprise that about 30 associates from other Fleming's locations had started roughly three weeks of training with the Riverside staff. He also said the restaurant will be ready for both the festival and Thanksgiving Day, when it will be open and serving turkey. The festival closes on Thanksgiving, so Nov. 26 is one of the few dates this season when a new downtown restaurant is open and the lights are not.

The chain was founded in Newport Beach in 1998 and has more than 60 locations. Glass said he wants it to become "downtown Riverside's steakhouse," with an interior designed to reflect the neighborhood. The 12 days between the Nov. 9 opening and the switch-on are the only stretch this season when its dining room opens onto a downtown without festival crowds.

The mall turns 60 with most of its upgrades still in progress

The Main Street Pedestrian Mall dates to 1966. It was built as a four-block, car-free, park-like stretch from Sixth to Tenth Streets, a response to downtown retailers leaving for suburban shopping malls, according to a local history of the mall's architect. The Ward 1 update in the August bulletin marked the November anniversary and listed several planned projects for the mall:

1. Over-street café lighting and a large Riverside monument sign on Main Street between 5th and 6th Streets
2. More trees and landscaping between 6th Street and Mission Inn Avenue
3. A large public art installation between Mission Inn and University Avenues, made from the mall's original 1966 Raincross streetlights
4. A "Main Street Alley" between UCR Arts and Arcade Coffee Roasters
5. Restoration work on parts of City Hall

The bulletin presented these as planned projects. It gave no completion dates, and no anniversary celebration had been announced as of late October. The alley is the project with a public timeline. As the Raincross Gazette reported, the alley near 9th Street was created in 2019 with the Main + Nine apartment building and has been fenced off and unused. UCR owns the land, Arcade Coffee Roasters will open and lock it each day, and Public Works will maintain it. Councilmember Philip Falcone described the first phase to the Gazette:

"Phase 1 will include a decorative arched entry gate entitled 'Main Street Alley' along with tables and chairs and large potted plants and trees."

The alley will be a dead end that opens only from Main Street, and it adds seating next to a coffee shop that has very little. Falcone told the Gazette the public can expect it to open before the Festival of Lights starts. That gives the anniversary year's most concrete addition the same deadline as Fleming's.

What changes on Nov. 21

The 34th switch-on ceremony starts at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 21, at Orange Street and Mission Inn Avenue, with fireworks to follow. The city advises arriving by 4:30 p.m. According to the city, as reported by The Press-Enterprise, about 50,000 people attended last year's switch-on.

The two official sources list different end dates. The city's Festival of Lights page lists its event as running Nov. 22 through Dec. 31, closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. The Mission Inn lists the festival through Jan. 3, 2027. On the city's schedule, Santa Claus and community entertainment are on Main Street Thursday through Sunday, food vendors are there daily, and Merry Artswalk falls on Dec. 3 and Dec. 17. The city says it will post event parking information and maps when they are ready. It also points visitors to Riverside Transit Agency as a way downtown without dealing with traffic or parking. Last year's hours and garage reservations were set for 2025, so hold off planning around them until the city posts the 2026 details.

Candy Land gives the festival a second, ticketed site

The new piece this year is Candy Land at Albert S. White Park, 3936 Chestnut St. It runs Thursdays through Sundays from Nov. 27 to Dec. 27 and includes a holiday light maze, an illuminated photo trail, a Holiday Art Trail of lighted installations commissioned from local artists, an artisan marketplace, and food, wine, hot chocolate and hot apple cider. The lights along Main Street are free to walk. Candy Land charges admission:

• Thursday, Friday and Sunday: $15
• Saturday: $20
• Dec. 18 through 27: $20 every night
• Children 2 and under: free
• Riverside resident rate: $13 on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, at the door with proof of residency
• Family 4-Pack: $50 Thursday, Friday and Sunday, or $70 on Saturdays and Dec. 18 through 27

The resident rate does not apply on Saturdays or during the last 10 days, and the city says discounts and packages cannot be combined. The $13 price is limited to the lower-priced nights, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, before the Dec. 18 price increase.

Candy Land opens the day after Thanksgiving, six days after the switch-on. From then on, the festival runs at two sites, and Fleming's, the new cafés and the alley will all have their first holiday season inside it.

For Riverside homeowners, a season that starts with a new steakhouse and the Main Street Mall's 60th year is a useful time to see how downtown's changes are showing up in local home values. The Vasquez Group can give you a clear, data-backed number in English or Spanish. Get your free home valuation before the lights switch on.