Half Moon Bay's downtown core is essentially three blocks of Main Street, between the bridge at the north end and Kelly Avenue to the south. Many of the false-front wooden buildings date from the 1870s and 1880s, when the town was the commercial hub for the coastside farming community, and the scale is small and walkable. Today the buildings hold a mix of antique stores, independent boutiques, a couple of bookshops, and a dense cluster of restaurants and tasting rooms.
The area is busiest on weekends, when Bay Area visitors come over the hill for lunch and a wander, and at the third weekend of October when the Pumpkin Festival takes over the entire street. Outside those times it is a pleasant place to spend an hour. Half Moon Bay Bakery on Main Street has been baking sourdough in a brick oven since the 1920s and is worth a stop. The bridge over Pilarcitos Creek at the north end of Main is a good viewpoint back toward the historic core.