Strip the old stucco off a wall in downtown Bakersfield and you might find something nobody working there today has ever seen. That's what happened at 19th and L, where crews peeling back decades of exterior finish uncovered a faded advertisement for a market that closed before most of us were born. "The sign has been a fun story," developer J.P. Lake told KGET, and it's easy to see why. The paint underneath reads "Fresh Every Morning, Prices Right," a leftover from the Bakersfield Grocery Company, the 1920s-era market that once ran out of that corner.
The sign is a nice detail. What it's attached to is the bigger story. That one building, plus a taco shop that opened a few doors down last month, plus a city construction crew currently tearing up the street in front of both of them, means the same two blocks of 19th are getting rebuilt from the inside and the outside at the same time. If you walk this stretch regularly, the next few months are going to look and sound different than they have in years, and it's worth knowing why before you hit a detour you didn't expect.
Two Renovations, One Block
Most downtown building projects and most street projects happen on their own schedules, in their own corners of the neighborhood, without much overlap. What's unusual about 19th Street right now is that a private redevelopment and a public infrastructure project are running at the same time, on the same stretch, with completion dates that land within weeks of each other this fall. That's not a coincidence anyone planned. It's just what happens when a downtown that's been mostly quiet for years starts moving on multiple fronts at once.
The Building Getting a Second Life, and a Third Business
The building itself opened as a two-story hotel around 1890, according to KGET's reporting, before it became the Bakersfield Grocery Company's storefront in the 1920s. For decades since, it's mostly sat empty. Lake bought it with partners Javier and Laurie Bustamante, and the plan for 2026 is to turn it into three things at once: a 2,200-square-foot deli or grocery, a small restaurant or sandwich shop next to it, and an 8,000-square-foot rock climbing gym called Grit Valley Climbing filling out the rest of the block.
Architect David Erb of Elevate Architecture redesigned the building's front with a new pitched, winged facade, which was finished by the end of March. The first restaurant tenant, still unnamed as of the reporting, was expected to open by late spring. The deli was targeted for sometime this summer, which puts it opening right around now if the timeline held. Lake has said he wants the deli stocked with grab-and-go pastas, deli meats, sandwiches, and fresh produce, something he pointed out is hard to find if you actually live downtown. Grit Valley Climbing is the bigger build, with a full buildout expected to run through the end of 2026 and a roll-up door planned to bring in outside air on nicer days.
The building will also fold in a sushi restaurant and a sign company that already sit around the corner on L Street, businesses that were there before any of this started and aren't going anywhere.
A Few Doors Down, One New Business Already Opened
While the historic building works through its buildout, a new business has already planted a flag nearby. Tacos Mi Pa! held its grand opening at 1310 19th St on a Tuesday in late July, timed to Taco Tuesday, with a ribbon cutting hosted by the Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh attended. The first 100 guests got free tacos and drinks, and the shop is built around homemade tortillas, carne asada, and churros.
Here's what that means if you're mapping the block in your head: within roughly a hundred yards of each other, you've got a taco shop that's already serving, a deli and restaurant aiming to open around now if they're on schedule, and a climbing gym under construction through the rest of the year. That's five new points of activity converging on a stretch of 19th Street that's spent a long stretch mostly boarded up.
What's landing on this stretch of 19th, and where things stand as of August 2026:
- Tacos Mi Pa! at 1310 19th St, open and serving as of late July.
- The deli or grocery at 19th and L, targeted for a summer opening inside the historic building.
- The still-unnamed restaurant or sandwich shop next door, targeted for a late spring opening.
- Grit Valley Climbing, the 8,000-square-foot gym anchoring the rest of the building, with a buildout expected to run through the end of the year.
- The existing sushi restaurant and sign company around the corner on L Street, unchanged and already open.
Meanwhile, the Street Itself Is Getting Rebuilt
None of this is happening on a quiet street. The city broke ground in mid-April on a $7.5 million corridor improvement project covering 18th and 19th Streets, part of the long-running Making Downtown Bakersfield Vision Plan. The work is happening in three phases: one segment between L and O Streets, a second between F and L Streets, and a third stretching from O Street to Mill Creek. The city expects the whole thing wrapped by late October 2026.
Worth noticing: L Street is the exact boundary between the first two phases, which means the block with the historic building and the ghost sign sits right at the seam where two separate construction segments meet. If you live or work near 19th and L, you're about as close to the middle of this project as it's possible to be.
The larger goal behind the corridor work is spelled out in the city's own planning documents, which describe the effort as an attempt to improve walkability and attract reinvestment along downtown's core streets over the next several decades, not just patch potholes. Whether that pans out is a longer story. What's certain right now is that the sidewalks in front of the new taco shop and the building-in-progress are, for the time being, part of an active job site.
What This Means If You Walk This Block
If your routine takes you through this stretch of 19th, expect some friction between now and late October. Sidewalks may be narrowed or rerouted depending on which phase is active near you, and parking near the construction zones will likely be tighter than usual. None of the businesses opening on the block are closing for it. Tacos Mi Pa is already serving through the construction, and the historic building's tenants are building out on their own separate timeline regardless of what's happening in the street.
The timing lines up in one more way worth knowing about if you like an excuse to walk downtown. The Downtown Business Association has Taste of Downtown scheduled for October 1, 2026, at the Iron Lily Venue on 24th Street, which lands right around when the corridor project is supposed to be finishing up. If the schedule holds, you'd be looking at a stretch of 19th Street that goes from torn-up sidewalks and a building mid-renovation in August to a mostly finished corridor with a new deli, a new restaurant, and a working climbing gym by the time that event rolls around.
That's the actual shape of what's happening down there. Not a single ribbon cutting or a single road closure, but two separate processes landing on the same stretch of pavement at close to the same time, for reasons that have nothing to do with each other and everything to do with why this block looks the way it does right now.
Sean Harper covers property and financing across the Central Valley, including Bakersfield, Visalia, and the rest of Kern, Tulare, Kings, and Fresno counties, and pays attention to the kind of block-level change that doesn't always make the headlines. If you're curious what a shifting downtown corridor means for property values nearby, or you just want to talk through what you're seeing on your own street, Sean Harper is glad to have that conversation. Let's Connect.
