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Life on the Central Coast
Spring 2028·Arts & Culture
Best Of

Best of the Central Coast 2026: Readers' Choice

11,200 votes across 48 categories. Your favorite taqueria, your favorite sunset, your favorite winemaker — all decided.

By Central Coast Living Staff·
Best of the Central Coast 2026: Readers' Choice
Photograph by Staff

Every year we ask our readers to tell us what they love most about living on the Central Coast. Every year, you vote as if your favorite taco truck's existence depends on it. (It might.)

This year 11,200 of you weighed in across 48 categories — from Best Winery (Tablas Creek, for the third straight year) to Best Hidden Beach (spoiler: it's not Pirates Cove anymore) to a new category we added at your request: Best Place to Watch a Sunset With a Dog. The winner there is Cayucos Pier, which frankly wasn't even close.

What follows is the full list — every winner, every runner-up, and a few honorable mentions that we included because the margins were too tight to ignore.


Central Coast Living Staff contributed to this story.

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