Skip to content

Avila Market Restaurant & Mercantile originally opened in the 1920’s, and has seen the complete evolution of Avila Beach into the beautiful destination location it is today.  The Market continues to live up to its name by offering some of the best food and drink in SLO County from local merchants, like KravaBowl, Harmony Valley Creamery, and Splash Cafe, which they serve alongside their own in-house menu and wine and beer crafted locally.  Learn more about Avila Valley Market Restaurant & Mercantile below, and make sure to visit the next time you find yourself in Avila Beach! 


The Restaurant

The menu at Avila Market is a combination of in-house food and items they’ve partnered to bring in from other restaurants.  

KravaBowl, for example, is located within Avila Market and you can order their acai bowls and smoothies along with your breakfast burritos.  Splash Cafe also serves their famous sourdough bread bowl clam chowder at the market, which you can get with one of the many other soups, salads, burgers, and tacos on the menu.

Everything is ordered at once and paid for at the same time, which is nice so you don’t have to bounce around the market to get everything you want to eat.  The only thing missing from the menu are the drinks, but that is because you can go right downstairs to their grocery area and purchase a drink from their wide selection. 

There is also a bar that opens later in the day that serves beer and wine, which you would also pay for separately from your food.  


The Mercantile

In addition to the food served on the main floor of Avila Market, you can also find lots of snacks and drinks available in the downstairs grocery market that also showcase some of the best local products in SLO County. 

Items like six packs of local beers and pints of Harmony Valley Ice Cream are sold at the grocery downstairs, along with basics like ice and water and Avila-themed souvenirs like beach toys, blankets, mugs, and keychains.  

The downstairs grocery does not currently serve hot meals, but is finalizing a partnership with Front Street Sandwich Co to offer items from their menu. 

Patrons of the market could then come right downstairs for their favorite sando, pick up a bag of chips, drink, and a pint of ice cream, and head right back outside for another perfect day at the beach. 


Our Experience

We find ourselves at Avila Market mostly for breakfast, and love being able to swing by for a quick meal that we know will be delicious and give us the energy to keep exploring.  

The first time we went to Avila Market we had the choice to either order from their menu upstairs, or head downstairs to their “grab and go” section that had different snacks and drinks to choose from.  

We were in the mood for smoothies that day so headed to the register to place our order.  While in line we decided we were hungrier, and added the avocado toast and sweet corn fritters last minute.  

After ordering and paying we were welcome to find a seat anywhere inside or outside the market (they have a great outdoor patio in front), and found a table easily with great views of the ocean outside.  

Our order was called from their pick-up window quickly, which was nice because we were already pretty hungry when we arrived.

This time around we got the OG and Bay Breeze Smoothies along with the Avocado Toast and Sweet Corn Fritters.  Kind of a weird collection of food, but it was all delicious and hit the spot!

 There is so much other good food on the menu though, like the breakfast burritos, clam chowder from Splash Cafe, burgers, wraps, salads, and acai bowls!  We’ll definitely be back, and will update this page with all the good food we’re lucky to have while we’re there.


History

Avila Market Restaurant & Mercantile has been an important part of Avila since the 1920s when it first opened its doors, and today stands as one of the few surviving merchants from the catastrophic Unocal oil spill in 1989. 

Unfortunately, however, Avila Market didn’t escape the oil spill unscathed; cleanup of the spill didn’t occur until the late 1990s, and resulted in much of the downtown and beach razed to the ground.  Some sections of Avila were even dug as deep as 15 feet to clean up the spill!

Avila Market was one of the buildings razed during the cleanup efforts, but was rebuilt and stands today as an important piece of Avila’s history.  True to their roots, Avila Market Restaurant & Mercantile continues today to showcase some of the best products crafted right here in SLO County, and a full menu full of the freshest ingredients caught, grown, and sourced locally too ready for you to stop by and enjoy.  


Location

Address:

354 Front Street
Avila Beach, CA 93424

  • From 101 South, take exit 196 for San Luis Bay Drive toward See Canyon / Avila Beach.  Turn right on San Luis Bay Drive and travel west 1.4 miles. Turn right at Avila Beach Drive and continue south for 1.1 miles.  Turn left at San Luis Street Parkway and follow the curved street for .4 miles. At Front Street turn right, and Avila Market will be 200 feet on the right.
  • From 101 North, take exit 195 for Avila Beach Drive.  Continue on the offramp, and take a slight left to continue on Avila Beach Drive / Port San Luis.  Continue on Avila Beach Drive 2.5 miles, and turn left at San Luis Street. Follow the curved street for .4 miles, and turn right at Front Street.  Avila Market will be 200 feet on the right.

There is only street parking in front of Avila Market Restaurant & Mercantile, but Avila’s downtown area has lots of public parking spaces so you should not have to walk more than a few blocks to the Market.  There is also a paid parking lot on 1st Street between San Miguel Street and Beach Colony Lane that is a 3 minute walk away.  


Contact, Hours, & Social

Phone:

(805) 439-4124

General Inquiries:

https://www.theavilamarket.com/contact-us

Instagram
Facebook
Yelp

Hours of Operation:

Monday – Sunday8:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Cart
Back To Top