Car Week 2026: The Fully Caffeinated Guide to the Greatest Automotive Week on Earth
Every August, our quiet little corner of the coast turns into the center of the automotive universe. For one glorious week (August 7 through 16 this year), the Monterey Peninsula fills with Ferraris worth more than most houses, houses worth more than most Ferraris, and a soundtrack of twelve-cylinder engines echoing off the pines. It's loud, it's gorgeous, and it runs almost entirely on caffeine. Which is where we come in.
We've been fueling Car Week since before it was "Car Week." Our baristas can spot a Gullwing from a block away, our Ocean Avenue shop sits in the middle of the action, and this year we're prouder than ever: Carmel Valley Coffee Roasting Company is the official coffee of Quail Lodge, home of one of the most exclusive events of the entire week. When the world's most discerning car collectors need a cup, they're drinking ours. We think about this constantly. We will mention it again.
Here's your local's guide to the week, sorted the way we actually think about it: what costs money, what's gloriously free, where the gavel drops, and what's happening at the track.
The Hot Tickets
These are the events people plan entire years around. Tickets are not cheap, and several sell out months ahead, so consider this section aspirational, inspirational, or a shopping list, depending on your situation.
The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering (Friday, August 14, Quail Lodge & Golf Club) is the toughest ticket of the week and arguably the most civilized way to look at cars ever devised. A curated field of hundreds of rare vehicles, over a dozen world debuts, and hospitality so good it borders on showing off. And here's the part we can't stop grinning about: as the official coffee of Quail Lodge, our beans are fueling the whole gorgeous affair. Somewhere between the hypercar debuts and the champagne, someone is drinking a perfectly pulled shot of our espresso. That someone should be you. (Pro tip: our Barnyard and Crossroads coffeehouses both sit right at the mouth of Carmel Valley Road. Fuel up on the way in and you'll arrive caffeinated and smug.)
Proof that Car Week brings everyone to our counter: our own Janet McAthie with Magnus Walker, the Urban Outlaw himself. When the world's most famous Porsche obsessive needs fuel, he knows where to find it.
The Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance (Sunday, August 16, the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links) is the main event, the finale, the Best in Show of best in shows. Now in its 75th year, it's where the finest collector cars on earth pose against Stillwater Cove while judges in blazers inspect them with the intensity we usually reserve for cupping new single origins. If you attend one ticketed event in your life, make it this one. More on Sunday morning in a moment, because it involves us, a tradition we love, and a blend we named for it.
The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion (August 12 through 15, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca) gets its own section below, because a racetrack deserves its own section. That's just manners.
The Free Stuff (Our Favorite Price)
Here's the beautiful secret of Car Week: some of the best car watching on the planet costs exactly nothing.
Concours on the Avenue (Tuesday, August 11, Ocean Avenue) brings roughly 175 stunning machines right down our street. And we do mean our street. The show sets up steps from our Ocean Avenue coffeehouse, which means you can judge paint quality with a Foglifter® in one hand and a breakfast burrito in the other, exactly as the founders of the concours movement intended. This is our home game. Come early, the crowds are real.
Eccentrica at Carmel Valley Coffee (our Ocean Avenue shop) is the event we're most excited to host: the wizards at Eccentrica, the Italian atelier reimagining the legendary Lamborghini Diablo, are bringing their masterpiece to our doorstep. Raging bull meets roasted bean. Come see a hand-built Italian icon, meet the people behind it, and have a coffee with us while you're at it. Free, caffeinated, and very loud in the best way.
The Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance (Thursday, August 13) is the insider's freebie: the actual Concours entrants, the same multimillion-dollar machines competing on Sunday, drive a scenic loop through the Peninsula and park right on Ocean Avenue around midday. It's Sunday's field, for free, four days early, conveniently near a coffeehouse we could recommend.
The Auctions
Car Week is also when nine-figure sums change hands to the sound of polite applause. RM Sotheby's (August 13 through 15) runs its flagship Monterey sale, Gooding & Company holds court at Pebble Beach, Bonhams sets up at Quail Lodge (where, yes, the coffee situation is excellent, see above), Broad Arrow anchors the Quail itself, and Mecum brings the sheer volume. Viewing the auction previews is one of the great underrated moves of the week: museum-quality cars, up close, with estimates that will make you feel much better about your coffee budget. Watch someone casually raise a paddle on an eight-figure Ferrari, then come tell us about it. We'll be behind the counter, living vicariously.
Laguna Seca: Where the Old Cars Still Run Hard
The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion (August 12 through 15) is where Car Week stops posing and starts racing. Hundreds of historic race cars, from prewar grand prix machines to Le Mans legends, get driven the way their makers intended around WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca's eleven turns, including the famous Corkscrew, a downhill left-right that drops the equivalent of five and a half stories in the space of a few heartbeats. Walk the paddock (it's open to spectators, and the mechanics love to talk), find a spot at the Corkscrew, and let the sound rearrange your internal organs slightly. If you're heading out early for practice sessions, and you should, our Crossroads shop is perfectly positioned for the drive over Highway 68. A thermos of our coffee at Turn 8 is a Car Week tradition among people of taste.
Dawn Patrol: The Reason We Named a Blend
And now, the tradition closest to our hearts. On Sunday morning, hours before the Concours opens, something magical happens on the 18th fairway. It's called Dawn Patrol, and it began decades ago as a race to be first in line to watch the entrants roll onto the grass. Today, thousands of true believers gather in the pitch dark before 5:30 a.m., coffee in hand, to watch the world's greatest cars fire up and creep onto the field as the sun rises over Carmel Bay. Engines coughing to life in the fog. Headlights in the half-dark. It's the single most soulful moment of the entire week.
And it's not just spectators. Sunday's dawn belongs to the volunteers too, the small army that heads out in the dark to position cars, set the field, and make the whole show possible before most of the Peninsula has hit snooze. Getting up at 4 a.m. for the love of the thing: we cannot think of anything more us.
Which is exactly why our newest blend is called Dawn Patrol. A medium-dark roast built for the people who get up before first light, whether they're chasing waves, chasing sunrises, or guiding a 1930s Alfa Romeo onto a golf course by flashlight. If you're setting an alarm with a 4 in front of it this August, this is your coffee. Brew it strong, pour it into something insulated, and go witness the fog lift over a hundred million dollars of rolling art. We'll be up too.
The Fine Print
Traffic during Car Week is its own endurance event, so leave early, walk when you can, and treat every parking spot like the treasure it is. Layer up, because August in Carmel means fog until it doesn't. And keep your head on a swivel crossing Ocean Avenue. That rumble behind you is real.
All three of our coffeehouses, Ocean Avenue, The Barnyard, and The Crossroads, will be open, stocked, and slinging espresso all week long. Come for the cars. Stay for the coffee. Ideally, do both at once.
Brew boldly,
The Team at Carmel Valley Coffee Roasting Company
P.S. Did we mention we're the official coffee of Quail Lodge? We did? Good. Just checking.
P.P.S. Can't make it to Dawn Patrol this year? A bag of Dawn Patrol at home, brewed at 5:30 a.m. with engine videos playing on your phone, is a legally acceptable substitute. We checked with no one.
