Home Coffee Roasters, a small coffee chain based in San Francisco, picked Cityline for its first location outside the city this year, setting up inside a mixed-use development with an AMC theater, a Target, and apartment towers still filling up. Three blocks away on Murphy Avenue, Khaar opened this September serving Assamese and Naga dishes nobody else in the Bay Area was cooking, inside a storefront that had already changed hands once this decade. Both count as new investment in downtown Sunnyvale. Neither owner would have made the other's choice of address.
The Same Block, Different Owners, One Reason
Khaar's chef, Nandana Hazarika, spent close to two decades as a software engineer and data analyst before enrolling in culinary school. She interned at The Oxford Kitchen & Gastropub on Murphy Avenue, then took over that same space when it closed, opening Khaar with a soft launch on August 14 and a grand opening on September 12. She had auditioned for MasterChef India in 2022 and was cut before filming started, a setback that didn't end the career change.
Seven months earlier, restaurateur Zareen Khan opened her fourth Zareen's location at 135 S. Murphy Ave, a short walk from Khaar's future address. Khan already had three locations running in Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Redwood City. She didn't need Sunnyvale. She chose it anyway, and named the reason directly: she loved the vibe of historic Murphy Street, with its old downtown feeling.
| New to Murphy Avenue in 2026 | Address | Arrived |
|---|---|---|
| Zareen's | 135 S. Murphy Ave | February 2026 |
| Khaar | 193 S. Murphy Ave | August 14 soft open, September 12 grand opening |
| Home Coffee Roasters (Cityline, for comparison) | 200 W. McKinley Ave | 2026 |
Khan could have opened her fourth Zareen's inside Cityline, where a newer development already has an anchor tenant in Target and a built-in customer base of apartment residents. She picked the block that still looks like early Sunnyvale instead.
What "Old Downtown Feeling" Actually Means
Murphy Avenue earns that description with specifics, not nostalgia. The Del Monte building on the block is a leftover from the California Packing Company, which packed local apricots, prunes, and peaches here in the early 1900s. It was refurbished and relocated to its current spot on Murphy Avenue in 1999, and it still reads as a working landmark rather than a plaque nobody stops to read.
Leigh's Favorite Books has operated on the same block since 2004, and its sister shop Bookasaurus followed in 2012. Between them they run author talks, book clubs, and evening mystery-and-mocktail nights that have nothing to do with new tenants or turnover. Bean Scene Cafe, at 186 S. Murphy Ave, has opened daily at 7 a.m. since before Home Coffee Roasters existed anywhere outside San Francisco.
The city made the block's pedestrian identity permanent rather than incidental. Murphy Avenue closed to car traffic temporarily during the pandemic, then permanently in early 2023, and the city has since upgraded the walking paths to be cleaner and more accessible. That's infrastructure spending layered on top of a reputation that already existed, not the thing that created it.
The Saturday farmers market ties the physical continuity to the current wave of openings. By mid-morning, shoppers tend to leave on foot with bags instead of driving off with them, the kind of detail that tells you a pedestrian block is functioning as intended rather than just looking busy on a map.
Cityline Is Building a Different Kind of Downtown
Cityline isn't competing for the same tenants, and it isn't trying to. The development has spent the past several years adding housing, retail, an AMC theater, and a Target, aimed at building a downtown from newer construction and commercial anchors rather than replicating Murphy Avenue's history. When The Martin, one of Cityline's residential buildings, opened, it reportedly crossed 60 percent occupancy within about four months, a fast lease-up pace for a brand-new tower at the time.
Redwood Square, Cityline's version of a public plaza, pairs preserved redwood trees with a digital water curtain that runs animated patterns day and night. It's a different kind of landmark than the Del Monte building: engineered for the moment rather than inherited from one.
The businesses picking Cityline over Murphy Avenue this year fit that pattern. Home Coffee Roasters is a small chain expanding outside its home city for the first time, the kind of tenant looking for foot traffic from apartment residents and moviegoers rather than a decades-old storefront with its own backstory. Cityline runs its own event calendar to match, including a "Fall Into Fun" series with complimentary family portraits and an open-air artisan market, plus a gaming-themed event called CTLR + PLAY running from September 30 through October 29. None of that overlaps with programming three blocks over on Murphy Avenue.
The Diwali Mela Chose a Side Too
The clearest sign that Murphy Avenue's identity isn't just a line restaurant owners use in interviews came from a nonprofit with no restaurant to promote. The South Asian Cultural Association of Sunnyvale, founded in 2021, holds its annual Diwali Mela on Historic Murphy Avenue rather than at Cityline, even though Cityline has hosted its own Mid-Autumn Festival and has newer plaza space available.
This year's Mela runs Saturday, October 3, from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at 230 S. Murphy Ave, in partnership with the City of Sunnyvale. The lineup includes:
- Diya painting and a kids' zone with face painting and balloon activities
- Indian classical dance performances from Bay Area schools
- Bollywood flash mob performances
- Henna, food trucks, and vendor booths for handicrafts, clothing, and jewelry
- A Halloween costume parade folded into the same afternoon
Admission and parking are free. SACAS chose the block that already functions as downtown's civic center, the same block where Khaar and Zareen's chose to open, rather than the block with the newer plaza and the water feature.
What Comes After the Wednesday Concerts End
The Downtown Sunnyvale Association's own summer programming has already wound down for the year. The Summer Series Music + Market ran as an eight-week Wednesday night concert series on Historic Murphy Avenue, drawing up to 1,300 people a week for acts including The Hitmen, First Call, and Cisco Kid. Jazz and Beyond took over Saturday evenings in July and August on the same stretch of pedestrian mall. Both are finished for the season.
That doesn't mean the block goes quiet before the holidays. The farmers market keeps running on Saturdays. Khaar and Zareen's keep serving dinner on a block that already held DishDash, Metro City, and Roberto's Cantina before either of them arrived. The Diwali Mela fills the first Saturday of October with a crowd the summer concerts never drew. A few blocks over, Cityline's own fall calendar runs through late October on a completely separate schedule, drawing on its own mix of new apartment residents and moviegoers rather than Murphy Avenue's foot traffic.
If Murphy Avenue's fall lineup changes how you spend a Saturday downtown, that's the kind of block-by-block shift KL Real Estate Team keeps track of in Sunnyvale. Reach out if you want a read on what else is opening, closing, or changing hands along Murphy Avenue this year.
