The two roundabouts at Hollister Avenue and Highway 217 have been carrying traffic since the start of March. The new Hollister bridge over San Jose Creek is complete. Since then, Old Town Goleta has picked up a full-service coffee roaster and a new burger-and-sandwich grill. It has also lost a fried chicken spot whose owner linked its closing to the roadwork. The road is mostly done. Its reputation as a place you can't get into or out of hasn't caught up, and this fall's openings are a bet that it will.
What the City Says Is Finished, and What Is Left
Project Connect broke ground in March 2024. Its Hollister package has two pieces: roundabouts at both Highway 217 ramp intersections, and a new Hollister Avenue bridge over San Jose Creek built to carry 100-year storm flows. The Santa Barbara Independent reported the roundabouts open on March 2.
The City's two-year update in March 2026 listed what was still to come:
- Fowler Road work
- Lighting, sidewalks and curb ramps
- Roadway surface treatments
- San Jose Creek improvements
- Landscaping and mitigation plantings
The same update put overall completion in spring 2027. Some work is still landing on Hollister itself. In a notice posted October 9, the City moved a drainage job at the west end of the roundabout to start today, Monday, October 12. The partial closure is expected to last about a week and stays in place 24 hours a day. Drivers leaving Dearborn Place or the southbound Highway 217 off-ramp can turn right onto Hollister but can't head east. The City suggests Highway 101 to the Patterson Avenue exit for anyone going to Ward Drive. The project page adds that final landscaping and finish work on the roundabouts is still underway.
So the Old Town road a driver uses this week is close to the finished version. The planters and sidewalks are still being completed.
A Road That Works Better Than Its Reputation
The roundabouts came on top of an earlier change. In October 2024, the City finished an interim restriping of Hollister through Old Town. The new layout has one car lane and one bike lane each way and a painted median. The north side has 90-minute back-in angled parking, and the south side has 90-minute parallel parking. The City says the restriping added about 15 parking spaces and is a pilot for future street design. A permanent Complete Streets plan for Hollister from Fairview Avenue to Highway 217 exists on paper, but the City says it is still working out how to pay for construction.
That means the striping, the roundabouts and the bridge all arrived on the same short stretch within roughly two years. In May 2024, the City launched an Old Town Open for Business campaign with bilingual videos, signs, banners and reminders about free parking lots. The campaign existed because getting people to Old Town was the hard part during construction.
Kyle Jones described what that period looked like from a restaurant counter. He opened Jonesy's Fried Chicken in Old Town in 2024, a few blocks off Hollister. He told the Santa Barbara Independent that early business was solid, with regulars driving in from Summerland and Solvang. When the roadwork started, he said, revenue dropped 40 percent "overnight." He also said the road works better now, but people still assume it's full of traffic. In August, Jonesy's announced it would close at the end of the month and that Jones would keep catering events through November.
Jones's point applies to the whole corridor. The congestion people remember belongs to a construction phase that is mostly over. The businesses opening now are counting on the street being judged by how it works today.
The Operators Who Signed On Anyway
Here is how the Hollister food map changed between July and early October 2026:
| Business | Address | What changed | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cajé Coffee Roasters | 5340 Hollister Ave. | New full-service café, the company's sixth location | Soft launch, then full opening set for Sept. 18 |
| Eddie's Grill | 5725 Hollister Ave. | New burger, salad and sandwich spot in the former GoodLand BBQ and Alphie's space | Soft opening Oct. 5 |
| Crushcakes | 5392 Hollister Ave. | Moved from full-service dining to bakery and grab-and-go | Starting July 27 |
| Jonesy's Fried Chicken | Old Town, off Hollister | Announced closure | End of August |
The Cajé opening shows a long-term commitment. Owner Ryan Patronyk told Noozhawk that the Goleta shop is the company's first new location in two years. It will serve specialty drinks some of the other locations don't offer. It also lets the company process more coffee beans and serves as the central training hub for baristas before they move to busier stores. Once fully open, the café was set to run 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day but Monday. A business doesn't put its roasting capacity and staff training on a street it expects to struggle.
Eddie's Grill is also an established operator rather than a first restaurant. According to santabarbara.com's dining column, brothers Eduardo, Juan Carlos and Jose Villa started it in Lompoc in 2014 and named it after Eduardo. It has grown to Yuma, Ventura, Buellton and San Luis Obispo. The Goleta location soft-opened October 5 serving lunch and dinner. The address is familiar to longtime Goleta diners as the former home of GoodLand BBQ and Alphie's, so the space stayed a restaurant through the construction years.
Crushcakes went a different way and adjusted its format instead of leaving. Starting July 27, the café at 5392 Hollister moved to bakery and grab-and-go service, and owner Shannon Gaston planned to expand custom cakes and catering.
At Goleta Beach, a Similar Move Toward Everyday Visits
The restaurant at Goleta Beach is making the same kind of change. In September, The Ellwood published a letter to the community, which the santabarbara.com dining column reprinted. It said guests had come to treat the restaurant as a place for birthdays and anniversaries, and that it had completely reworked its menus to be more approachable and affordable. The letter also introduced a frozen-cocktail program led by the Goletarita and stated the goal:
The living room of Goleta Beach.
The casual option there came first. In June, the Independent reported that The Ellwood had opened Little Woody's Pierside Bar & Grill, an outdoor spot serving a short burger-and-snack menu on Mondays and Tuesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those hours come from the June launch, before the September menu overhaul, so they may have changed.
Old Town and the beach are aiming at the same customers. Cajé chose a café open six days a week with long hours, Eddie's chose lunch and dinner, and The Ellwood is publicly trying to become a place people visit on an ordinary Tuesday. Each is a bet on regular local business rather than special occasions.
Reasons to Be on Hollister Before the Holidays
The fall calendar gives a few low-stakes reasons to test the new layout.
- Planting a Winter Garden, October 25, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. This workshop from the City of Goleta and the UC Master Gardeners of Santa Barbara County is at the Goleta Community Center, 5679 Hollister Ave., on the same stretch of Hollister as Eddie's Grill.
- Holiday at the Ranch, December 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Goleta Valley Historical Society hosts it at Rancho La Patera & Stow House, 304 N. Los Carneros Road.
- Old Town Goleta Holiday Parade. The City says the Goleta Lions Club's nighttime parade through Old Town is typically held on the first Saturday in December. The City lists that as the usual timing, so confirm the 2026 date before planning around it.
If the usual pattern holds, the parade will be the first one to run through Old Town since the roundabouts opened in March. Cajé's counter and Eddie's Grill both sit along that stretch of Hollister.
Changes like the Hollister roundabouts, the new bridge and the businesses filling Old Town's storefronts affect how a nearby home is valued, even before the last planters go in. If you own near the corridor and want to see where your property stands now that most of the roadwork is done, Lisa Foley can give you a careful, local read. Get your instant home valuation.
