The Back Nine
Sunday May 24, 2026 · Memorial Day Special
A short, off-schedule one. The long weekend is two-thirds gone, but the best of it is arguably still ahead — everything below happens tonight, Sunday, or on Memorial Day itself.
There's a five-block Monopoly board you can eat your way around on Main Street this afternoon, a brand-new open-air town square waiting at the end of an early Malibu drive, and a 38-year-old jazz and reggae festival on a campus lawn come Monday. None of it requires a plan more elaborate than showing up.
Three ways to land the holiday. Let's go.
Eat your way around a giant Monopoly board at MAINopoly
Today, Sun May 24 · 1–5pm (VIP 12pm) · Main Street, Santa Monica · ~$30
Santa Monica's Main Street turns into a life-size board game for the 11th year running. Check in at Ashland Hill for your board and your stack of MAINopoly money, then taste your way across five blocks and 20-plus restaurants and bars — Tavern on Main, Library Alehouse, Triple Beam, Lula Cocina among them. Complete the board and you're in the running for a $1,000 prize pack. New this year: a city Entertainment Zone permit means the 21-plus crowd can carry a drink from stop to stop. Top hats encouraged.
mainopolysm.com
An early drive down to Malibu's new Cross Creek Ranch
Civic Center Way, Malibu · Open-air, no reservation · Free to wander
Malibu quietly got a new town square. Cross Creek Ranch is a 13-acre open-air development off Civic Center Way — low-slung buildings, gardens and courtyards built for spending a morning with no agenda. Most of it is open now, with a Wally's Wine & Spirits and the California debut of Miami juice-bar Pura Vida among the spaces filling in. Leave early, take PCH up the coast while it's still empty, get coffee, and wander before the rest of the long weekend wakes up.
crosscreekranchmalibu.com
JazzReggae Festival at UCLA, 38 years deep
Mon May 25 · 11am–6pm · Wilson Plaza, UCLA, Westwood · ~$26
The largest student-run festival in the country has been doing this on Memorial Day since 1986 — top-tier jazz and reggae acts, student and community vendors, and a sprawl of local food across Wilson Plaza. It's an easy daytime move: arrive when gates open at 11, find shade, stay as long as the sound holds you.
For the Westsider who refuses to cross the 405
Venice, Santa Monica, the canals, the pier, the patios that aren't worth giving up. Everything below sits west of Lincoln Boulevard — meaning you don't have to leave, and arguably you never should.
Lunch on Abbot Kinney. Felix Trattoria for the handmade pasta if you can get in, or a flat white and a wander down to the Venice Skate Park if you can't. The whole stretch is built for a slow holiday afternoon. felixla.com
The Annenberg Beach House. The public side of an old Marion Davies estate — pool, sand, splash pad and a free-to-walk grounds right on PCH. The pool needs a reservation; the beach doesn't. annenbergbeachhouse.com
The Venice Canals at dusk. Free, quiet, and somehow still under-visited on a holiday. Loop the footbridges as the light goes gold, then dinner wherever's open on Washington.
Plan ahead · Mark your calendar
Concerts in the Dome · first Sundays, June–October. Chamber music inside the 100-inch telescope dome at Mount Wilson, a mile above the city — the acoustics are the whole point. The May opener sold out, so set your sights on June. Note the 53-step climb to the dome and the thin mountain air. mtwilson.edu
Hollywood Bowl season kicks off · early June. The summer season opens in the first week of June — grab a picnic to-go and get there early for the lots. Worth locking in dates now while the calendar's open. hollywoodbowl.com
A packable picnic blanket that actually fits in a tote
Every event in this issue is a sit-on-the-ground event, and the JazzReggae lawn is famously unforgiving. A sand-proof, water-resistant blanket that folds down to the size of a water bottle has quietly become the thing I grab on the way out the door all summer. Stuff it in the tote, forget it's there, look like you planned ahead.
Affiliate link — if you buy, we get a few cents and you get a blanket. Both wins.
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