Bibi Ji Left Two Addresses on State Street. Both Are Becoming Breakfast Spots.

"We plan to offer dosas and mimosas," Ninder Josan told the Santa Barbara Independent at the September 19 ribbon-cutting for Bombay Station 734. He and his brother, Kuldeep Singh, had just received a beer and wine license for the restaurant. Wine was added to their plan here as an extra. The plan itself starts at 9 a.m., and that ordering shows up again and again in what has opened on State Street this fall.

Two addresses, one restaurant's history

Bibi Ji, the contemporary Indian restaurant, ran at 734 State Street until June 2024. Then it moved up the street to 1213 State, where it later closed. Both of its old dining rooms are now being filled by new operators, and both have put breakfast at the center of the concept.

Bombay Station 734 serves Bombay street food and traditional Indian dishes, plus specialty coffee and house-made chai. Josan and Singh also run Apna Indian Kitchen a short walk down State Street. The room borrows its look from the cafés and old railway clubs of Bombay, with exposed brick, dark wood and crystal chandeliers. Josan told the Independent that the menu is meant to change "every month or so." He described it as "a train going through India with stops in different regions." The Independent's feature noted that Indian lunch has been easy to find in Santa Barbara for a long time, but an Indian breakfast is rare in a city this size. It also reported that the early dinner was a recent addition to the schedule.

Esther's comes from Starr Hall, Bruce Rolla and Barbara McDaniel, the team behind The House of Beau, the storytelling bar on State Street. Edhat reports that the concept is a 1920s time-travel theme drawn from Hall and Rolla's upcoming book series, The Beau Chronicles. The planned menu includes:

• Overnight oats, an English breakfast, and baked savory and sweet pies
• The Morning Fold, a flaky croissant with optional sausage
• The London Hour, which is baked eggs, potatoes, spinach, tomatoes and cheese served in a cast-iron skillet with bread
• A house coffee with a custom espresso, plus teas and botanical drinks made with edible flowers and herbs
• Mr. Pritchard's Savory and Sweet Pies, a rotating selection for dessert

According to Edhat, every ingredient will come from within 200 miles, including produce from the farmers markets, and gluten-free options are planned. Evenings at Esther's have a narrower plan. There will be an after-hours menu of small plates such as Beau's shrimp cocktail and warm bread with house butter. Dinner is planned only on Friday and Saturday nights, and a guest chef will host a supper club once a month. So the breakfast menu runs every day, and dinner runs two nights a week.

The new counters work by the slice and the scoop

Further down State, the other new openings this year are walk-up food, not sit-down dinners.

Milio's Pizza opened at 801 State Street in August. Partners Kamil Jumale and Miles Robbins run a New York-style shop built around slices, organic flour, dough water brought in from New York, and locally sourced ingredients, as Noozhawk reported. The shop's website shows it closed on Mondays and open until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The site gives two different weekday opening times, noon in one place and 11:30 a.m. in another, so it is worth checking before a weekday lunch.

Sweetaly opened at 401 Paseo Nuevo, the brand's first location in California. News Channel 3-12 reported that co-owner Francesco Amendola's family already runs two gelato shops in Utah. The family makes its gelato fresh every day using traditional Italian methods, with ingredients from Italy and from local suppliers.

The one new evening concept downtown is at the beach end of the street. The Hotel Californian replaced Blackbird at 36 State Street with The Knock Kitchen + Cocktails, which the Independent described as a more casual gastropub inspired by Hitchcock. It is a hotel restaurant inside a hotel. For the independent operators who opened on the 400 through 1200 blocks this year, daytime has been the starting point.

Where the evenings went

The same pattern shows up in reverse at 1117 State Street. After 10 years, Satellite closed its natural wine bar and vegetarian restaurant there on September 13. The space was attached to Kiva Coworking, and the restaurant had served lunch, dinner and an all-day bar alongside its wine shop. Founder Drew Cuddy wrote that the business had been on a month-to-month lease for about a year and could not reach an agreement that worked for both sides. He was clear there was "no shade" toward Kiva.

Satellite has moved to The Factory at 616 E. Haley St. Cuddy described it to Noozhawk as a place for "experimentation and growth." The daily restaurant is closed. Satellite's site describes the Haley Street location as an event space, with wine shopping by appointment, pickup for online orders, shipping, and local pickup for wine club members. Food now comes as pickup or catering, and Cuddy told Noozhawk that some Factory events might offer a short menu of two to five items.

The next dated program there is a WSET Level 3 wine course. In-person sessions are scheduled at The Factory on November 1, 2, 15 and 22, and tastings are included. Registration closes Thursday, October 29.

Cuddy said he would like to return to a permanent downtown space "one day, hopefully, if we can figure out a way to make State Street sustainable for small local businesses." He also told Noozhawk he hopes to use The Factory for conversations about how small businesses can do well downtown.

So downtown this fall gained two breakfast-first restaurants and two counter shops. A wine bar with a decade of evenings behind it moved four blocks off State Street, to a space that runs on appointments and events.

Announced for State Street, not yet confirmed open

Three more food businesses announced fall openings on or near State Street. As of mid-October, none had confirmed an opening date.

1. Confectionarium, at the corner of State and De la Guerra streets. Joanna Hobday, chief operating officer of Event Network, told Noozhawk in August that the opening had slipped from mid-August to about a month later. The sign and the white-and-yellow awnings were already up, and the plan is bulk candy, nostalgic favorites and treats with a local theme.
2. Gelato Gardens, at 1 Garden St. on the waterfront. Owner Omar Khashen planned a September opening for a shop combining gelato, flowers, coffee, grab-and-go food and local goods.
3. PopUp Bagels, at 3925 State St. in Five Points, in the former Blaze Pizza space. The News-Press reported a "mid-fall" target. The chain's format requires an order of at least three bagels plus a tub of cream cheese.

Two of these three are sweets, and one is a morning bagel shop. Esther's is still posting timeline updates on its Instagram, and the earliest opening on this list could be either Esther's or one of these three.

A downtown morning, as of this week

Here is what is available downtown this week, in time order and limited to places that are open now. Bombay Station 734 opens at 9 a.m. for chai and a regional Indian breakfast. Milio's starts selling slices at 11 a.m. on Saturdays and around noon on the other days it is open, and Sweetaly has gelato a few blocks away at Paseo Nuevo. If you want a cocktail after dark, The Knock is open at 36 State. The Funk Zone also added The Mullet this year, Pete Burnham's mullet-themed cocktail bar at 116 Santa Barbara St., located behind Lama Dog. It has vinyl, DJs, and drinks named after celebrities known for their mullets. When Esther's opens at 1213 State, breakfast will be available on the upper part of the downtown blocks every day of the week.

For buyers weighing a downtown Santa Barbara address, the new restaurant openings show what the blocks around a home are like on a weekday morning. Laura Drammer follows these changes on the ground across the Santa Barbara coast, and she is glad to talk through what they mean for the streets you are considering. Request a confidential consultation.