Old Monterey District Blog

Choose Your Treasure second hand store is celebrating our seventh anniversary in business! November 15 - 30, 2025, all merchandise is only $5. Come in and find a great deal. We're open Mon-Sat, 11am-7pm.

Choose Your Treasure has something for everyone! We carry new and used clothing and shoes for the entire family plus furniture, kitchenware, home decor, books, movies, and even a few bicycles. We're located at 211 Pearl Street in Downtown Old Monterey.

Downtown Old Monterey's Stacia Nicole, the owner of Stacia Nicole Beauty, is currently competing in the Fab Over 40 competition! You can help her win $40,000 and a photo on the cover of NewBeauty magazine by voting for her here.

About Stacia Nicole

Local entrepreneur and hair stylist Stacia Nicole is the owner of Franklin Street Collaborative, Hudson James, Stacia Nicole Beauty, and a new luxury hair extension brand, Carte Mane.

Stacia started her training as a hair stylist specializing in hair color work and completed her apprenticeship in Beverly Hills and in Santa Monica. She later moved to NYC where she trained in cutting and styling hair, taking her place in the fashion industry and participating in 16 seasons of NYC Fashion Week. Stacia has also worked on numerous TV shows styling the hair of hosts such as Rachael Ray and Rosie Pope.

Her well rounded education enables her to specialize in color correction, extensions, protein treatments, cutting and styling. Stacia Nicole Beauty is located at 201 West Franklin Street in Downtown Old Monterey - you can book an appointment here.

Venture Gallery presents award-winning painter Edi Matsumoto, our featured local artist for November, with her new book and exhibit, Otter Therapy.

About the Exhibit

This show features Edi's whimsical and uplifting art series and the launch of her new book, Otter Therapy, where sea otters take center stage in reimagined masterpieces by da Vinci and Van Gogh as well as in playful scenes inspired by film and celebrity culture.

Blending fine art with humor, Matsumoto’s work invites viewers to smile, laugh, and find joy in the unexpected charm of one of our favorite creatures of Monterey Bay.

About Venture Gallery

Venture Gallery is open 10am-6pm daily. Edi Matsumoto's artwork will be featured through November 2025. Venture Gallery is located at 260 Alvarado Street in Downtown Old Monterey. Visit our website to shop online for work by our local artists.

The Feral Market has new embroidered Monterey sweatshirts in the shop featuring some of the area's iconic wildlife and landscapes. Available in a variety of colors, these make great gifts or keepsakes! Visit us at 261 Alvarado Street in Downtown Old Monterey. We're family owned and operated.

The Rose Books and Obscurities now has a wide variety of works on architecture available at our shop at 136 Bonifacio Place in Downtown Old Monterey and online.

This past summer, we acquired a remarkable private collection devoted to architecture featuring a wide range of significant works spanning modernism, theory, and the avant-garde. Most copies are in Near Fine to Fine condition. We’ve begun adding select titles to our website with more to follow in the coming weeks.

Highlights include works by Christopher Alexander, Manfredo Tafuri, and Frei Otto, along with volumes on Bauhaus and Constructivist design, postwar modernism, and mid-century architectural philosophy. Recent additions such as The Linz Café, The Sphere and the Labyrinth, and Tensile Structures reflect the diversity and depth of this group.

We invite you to browse the growing selection and check back often as new titles are added.

New Chicken Empanadas and Mozz Bites from Jamba pair perfectly with your favorite beverage and make the perfect on-the-go, no hassle, don’t-even-need-to-think-about-it meal. Visit us at 398 Alvarado Street in Downtown Old Monterey.

Chicken Epanadas

Jamba's empanadas are stuffed with tender chicken breast, veggies, and smoky chipotle sauce.

Mozz Bites

Mozz Bites (that's "mozzarella cheese bites" for the uninitiated) are crispy, gooey goodness, perfect for dipping in marinara sauce.

Fall is here and pumpkin cream pies are now available from Freedom Bakery!

Our smooth and airy pies are made with a luscious pumpkin pie filling blended with cream and a touch of white chocolate cream cheese. Topped with whipped cream and finished with festive fall-themed sprinkles, they're perfect for holiday gatherings or fall celebrations.

Free Samples & Ordering

We're now offering free samples of the pumpkin cream pie at the Freedom Bakery Boutique, 305 Webster Street in Downtown Old Monterey, open Tuesday - Sunday, 10am-1pm. Already decided? Customers can preorder pies for next day pick up in Monterey.

Standard & Mini Sizes

Freedom Bakery's pumpkin cream pies are available in standard, 9" rounds (6-8 servings), or mini, 4" rounds (1 serving each). Learn more and place your order here.

Paris Bakery is ready for Spooky Season! Halloween pies will be available in limited quantities for walk-ins on weekends in October, but you can make sure you get one by placing your order in advance. Choose from cherry, boo-berry, and apple pie.

Let’s add something cute to your table this month! Call us at 831-646-1620 or visit the store at 271 Bonifacio Place in Downtown Old Monterey to pre-order.

Good news, early risers! Cibo Restaurant, under new ownership, now serves breakfast in addition to lunch and dinner. We open daily at 8:30am. Come on down to 301 Alvarado Street in Downtown Old Monterey and enjoy omelettes, french toast, eggs benedict, and more along with our specialty coffees, mimosas, and bloody marys.

Alma del Mar makes our own, all-natural soap in-house, and sometimes...it doesn't turn out as well as we'd hoped. So we're having a big sale!

Come by the shop at 269 Bonifacio Place in Downtown Old Monterey and you'll find bars of soap for $1-$2, flats of soap for $40, or you can fill a bag of end pieces for $5. Current scents are: Lavender, Eucalyptus, Lemon Verbena, Rose Geranium, and Sandalwood. Hurry before it's all gone!

Proceeds from all sales at Alma del Mar benefit the nonprofit Wahine Project,

Fabric stores are getting hard to find these days, and locating the good stuff in person, where you can touch it and see the colors and the drape? Ugh. What's a sewing enthusiast to do? Slowfiber's got your back.

This little shop, located at 517A Hartnell Street in Downtown Old Monterey, is a treasure trove of fun, high-quality fabrics and sewing notions you can use for patching your favorite old items or creating new ones.

Now at Slowfiber: a generous selection of new and vintage Japanese fabric. There are a multitude of scraps great for patching and small projects, and lots of 44-inch and 14-inch (Kimono-width) fabric in fantastic designs and textures (floral prints, cat prints, collage prints). We have thread, too. Come see what's here!

Every Tuesday, BoldJewelers offers a chance to win 10-25% off the price of our silver jewelry by spinning our wheel of fortune. Save an additional 5% when you follow BoldJewelers on Instagram or Facebook.

BoldJewelers is a family owned business located at 408 Alvarado Street in Downtown Old Monterey. We offer new and custom made jewelry, laser jewelry engraving, professional jewelry cleaning, and more.