Ocean City, MD Summer 2026: A Local's Guide to the Pedicabs, New Restaurants, and Free Nights That Actually Matter This Season

The tram that ran the length of the boardwalk for decades did not come back this year. In its place: a fleet of pedicabs, a new fine-dining room on 78th Street that opened three weeks ago, and an Argentine-Italian chophouse taking shape on 33rd. If you live here year-round, or your name is on a deed for a condo north of the Route 90 bridge, the island you woke up to on Memorial Day is not the one you closed up last October. The center of gravity has moved.

This is the resident's version of what changed.

The tram is gone. The pedicabs are the compromise.

For anyone who has spent a July evening walking a stroller from the Inlet up toward 27th Street, the tram was the quiet backbone of the boardwalk. It is not returning. Pedicabs debuted on the boardwalk beginning Memorial Day weekend to replace the discontinued tram service, and the cycle rickshaws are available from 2 p.m. to midnight daily.

The pricing is worth memorizing before you flag one down. Pricing ranges from $10 for a half-mile to $30 for the full 2.2-mile length of the boardwalk, and roughly twenty-five pedicabs should be operating by July 1, with twenty in service and five on standby.

Put that against the baseline. The old tram was a couple of dollars per rider and could carry a family. A pedicab at $30 for the length of the boards is closer to a short cab ride than a public shuttle, and the supply is capped. On a Saturday in mid-July, twenty rickshaws serving the entire boardwalk means the practical answer for most residents is still your own two feet. Where the pedicab actually earns its cost is the last-leg problem: the walk home after fireworks, or the trip back from Thrasher's when a kid is done. Budget for it as a taxi, not as transit.

The new-restaurant map has moved north of 33rd Street

For years the food conversation in Ocean City ran south to north, with the interesting rooms clustered near the Inlet and the bay-side classics from Fager's up through Fish Tales. This season the map is different. The most consequential openings sit on Coastal Highway between 33rd and 127th.

A few of these deserve the specifics.

Brasa, a restaurant equally inspired by the cuisines and cooking philosophies of Argentina and Italy, is taking shape on 33rd Street to replace Guido's Burritos. The Baltimore Sun coverage from April framed it as a chophouse concept rather than a casual room, which will change the after-eight energy on that block considerably.

Further up, a new fine-dining restaurant has joined the Ocean City business scene at Tide to Table, now open on 78th Street along Coastal Highway, owned and operated by chef Bobby Bassett and serving fresh, local seafood. The upscale seafood restaurant celebrated its soft opening on June 15, 2026, and is currently open from 5 to 10 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays, closed Tuesdays. If you have been complaining that the north end runs light on rooms where you would take out-of-town parents, this is the answer for July.

Two more matter for residents specifically. Oyster and Scales, which opened in September 2025, will experience its first full Ocean City summer; the seafood-focused restaurant is inspired by the classic elegance of Cape Cod's oyster houses and was created by Peter Elias, the founder of Spain Wine Bar. And fans of Surfin' Betty's Burger Bar now have a third location for pasture-raised beef burgers, hand-spun milkshakes, and beer with outdoor seating, at 127th Street and Coastal Highway in the former Tony Luke's spot.

The pattern here is what a resident should notice. The openings are not clustered around a single trend. They are clustered around a corridor. Coastal Highway from 33rd to 127th now carries the density that used to belong to a two-block stretch downtown. If you own north of 90th, your walkable dinner options this summer are meaningfully better than they were last Labor Day.

A Thursday, from 5 p.m. onward

The free-events calendar is where most guides get lazy. The generic version tells you Sundaes in the Park exists. The useful version is a real evening.

Start at Sunset Park at the bayside foot of South Division Street. Free concerts run every Thursday in July and August from 7 to 9 p.m. at Sunset Park Party Nights, in an outdoor setting overlooking the bay; bring a chair. Get there by 6:30 if you want space near the water.

Before that, on a first Wednesday, there is a quieter tradition worth knowing about. First Call Wednesdays at Aloft Ocean City honors first responders every first Wednesday from 4 to 7 p.m., with drink specials, complimentary appetizers, live music, and bay views.

If you would rather stay on the sand, the town's July lineup has a beach-facing option most weeks. The Pro Footvolley Tour will bring the sport to the sand from July 20 through August 2, showcasing the skill of combining soccer touches on a beach volleyball pitch, and Tourism Director Tom Perlozzo has framed the tour as central to the city's mission of engaging residents and visitors. It plays like beach volleyball crossed with a World Cup highlight reel, and it is free to watch.

For a rainy Thursday, there is now an indoor answer that did not exist a few summers ago. The Performing Arts Center will host the Classic Rock Tour on August 8 at 7:00 p.m., featuring Pure Prairie League, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Orleans, and Firefall, with tickets at ococean.com/pac.

What August actually looks like on the island

August has always been the month when the island stops belonging to residents. This year the tournament and concert schedule is dense enough that even locals will feel the traffic pattern shift week by week. Worth knowing which nights to avoid Coastal Highway:

• The Ocean City Summer Pickleball Tournament on July 18 and 19, and the Century Tennis Tournament for teams of two with a combined age of 100+ years, will be held at the Ocean City Racquet Center.
• August brings the return of the multi-million dollar White Marlin Open, which attracts anglers from across the globe and is the largest billfishing tournament in the world. If you live near the harbor at 14th Street, plan around the weigh-ins.
• The Seacrets Summer Concert Series compresses several sold-out nights into a two-week window. Bearly Dead plays the Beach Stage on Wednesday, July 29, with doors at 7 p.m., 21 and over, at $15 on LineLeap. The Elovaters play Sunday, August 9. Seven Suns follows on August 11, The Expendables on August 12, and Matisyahu on Tuesday, August 18, all with 7 p.m. doors on the Beach Stage.

The through-line is that Route 611 and 50 southbound will not behave in early August the way they did in July. Grocery runs before 10 a.m., not after.

One more shift worth naming

The Ashore Oceanfront Hotel finished its renovation this spring, and the affiliation change matters more than the paint. The renovation covers 250 guest rooms and suites, event spaces, the fitness center, and cafe, and the beachfront resort recently joined the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio, meaning guests can now earn and redeem points.

For a resident, the practical read is this. A Marriott-flagged oceanfront hotel with a full renovation raises the floor on what a north-end guest expects when they visit you. It also puts pressure on the older motel stock along the same stretch, which is the kind of pressure that eventually shows up in redevelopment applications. Watch that corridor over the next two seasons.

The through-line

Pull it together and the story is not a list of openings. It is a redistribution. The boardwalk lost its most familiar piece of infrastructure. Coastal Highway picked up a chophouse, a fine-dining seafood room, a third burger location, a wellness studio, and a bakery, most of them between 33rd and 127th. The free evenings still run on the bay side. August is louder than it was in 2024, and it is louder specifically in the places where you might have driven through last summer without thinking about it.

The island did not change all at once. It changed while you were away for the winter.

When it comes time to think through what any of this means for a property here, whether you own a bayside condo near the new Coastal Highway corridor or a family cottage south of the bridge, Bobbi Prescott and the team know the block-by-block texture of this market. Let's Connect.