For 127 years the Astoria Regatta has been a Clatsop County tradition, and for most of those years Warrenton residents who wanted to be in the middle of it drove across Youngs Bay, hunted for parking downtown, and drove home after the fireworks. That has been the shape of Regatta week for as long as anyone reading this has been in town.
This August, for the first time, the shape is different. The reason is a garage door on East Harbor Drive that rolled up for the first time in late 2025.
The anchor that wasn't there last August
Battery 245 Brewing Co. sits at 69 NE Heron Ave., steps from the Warrenton Marina, inside what used to be a boat and RV repair shop. It opened its doors last November after a build-out that ran years longer than planned, and it is the first craft brewery in a town that has existed since 1899. The three hands-on owners are locals: Jonathan Elliott, a Warrenton High School graduate who grew up here; Michael Ljungberg, formerly head brewer at Seaside Brewing; and Jeff Kilday, who ran the Wine and Beer Haus in Seaside for two decades. The brewery is named for a World War II coastal artillery battery a few miles up the road at Fort Stevens.
The reason this matters for Regatta week is geography. Battery 245's building looks straight out at the marina's roll-up doors, and the beer flows from a seven-barrel system in a former repair bay with fourteen-foot ceilings. Fish comes off boats owned by people the owners grew up with, including the Ruby Sea, and the beef is walked down from Main Street Market on the way in.
"Nothing makes a mayor more proud than something made in Warrenton." — Mayor Henry Balensifer, opening weekend
That quote landed in the local beer press in November. The civic pride reading is easy. The Regatta-week reading is harder to see until you look at where the festival's events actually sit on the map.
What's happening August 5 through 8
The Astoria Regatta Festival runs Wednesday through Saturday this year, and while the marquee events sit in downtown Astoria, several are close enough to Warrenton that a resident can plan a week without ever crossing the Youngs Bay Bridge in traffic.
| Day | Event | Where | Warrenton angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wed Aug 5, 7:00 pm | Queen's Coronation | Liberty Theatre, downtown Astoria | Free. Cross early, park in Uniontown, walk in. |
| Fri Aug 7, 6:00–7:30 pm | Astoria Yacht Club sailboat races | Columbia River, weather permitting | Visible from the north end of the Warrenton waterfront on a clear evening. |
| Sat Aug 8, 1:00–3:30 pm | Second Yacht Club race | Columbia River | Same viewing note. Battery 245's patio faces the right direction. |
| Sat Aug 8, 3:00 pm | Seamen's Memorial ceremony | Seamen's Memorial Park, Uniontown | Honors commercial fishermen, Coast Guard, Navy, bar pilots. |
| Sat Aug 8, evening | Grand Land Parade and Highwater Boat Parade | Downtown Astoria and river | The parking crunch. Consequences below. |
The Regatta has been designated an Oregon Heritage Tradition, and its own materials list Knappa, Warrenton, Gearhart, Seaside, and Cannon Beach as participating communities. What has changed is not the participation. What has changed is that the closest walk-in gathering spot to the Warrenton side of the water is now on the Warrenton side of the water.
The Fort Stevens side of the same week
The other reason this August feels different is that Fort Stevens is running its own summer programming through the same window. The state park is 4,300 acres, with fifteen miles of paved multi-use trails, the Peter Iredale wreck, Battery Russell, and ranger-guided kayak tours on Coffenbury Lake through the summer season. Day-use parking is $10, or free with an annual state parks pass.
Layered on top of that, the Summer's End Music Series runs on the third Saturday of the month from May through September at the Fort Stevens amphitheater. May through August are free-admission nights; September is the ticketed festival. This year's August installment lands on the 15th, one week after the Regatta closes, and the schedule leans on regional acts with food from the Fort Stevens VFW Post 10580 and Tacklebox Burritos rather than an outside vendor circus.
If you have out-of-town family arriving for Regatta weekend and staying through the following one, there is now a plausible week without a single meal in a chain restaurant: Battery 245 for the fish and chips or the pan-seared oysters, the Uptown Cafe on Ensign Lane for breakfast, and the Fort Stevens amphitheater on the following Saturday.
The parking math nobody says out loud
Here is the piece Warrenton residents already know but rarely explain to visitors. On the closing Saturday of the Regatta, downtown Astoria parking near the parade route disappears by mid-morning. The Grand Land Parade at noon closes Exchange and Duane between 16th and 9th. The Highwater Boat Parade at 5:00 p.m. draws a wall of viewers along the Astoria waterfront restaurants and 17th Street Pier, where the Coast Guard search-and-rescue demonstration happens at 2:00 p.m.
The Highwater parade runs the length of the Columbia in front of downtown Astoria. It is also visible, at a different angle and with room to breathe, from the Warrenton side of Youngs Bay and from points along East Harbor Drive as the boats work their way in and out of position. It is not the same view. It is a view you can get to without leaving your zip code, without paying for parking, and with a table you can actually reserve.
For a lot of Warrenton households, that is the trade being made this year for the first time.
A smaller thread underneath
The other change on the Warrenton side is less visible from the calendar. Battery 245's arrival was one of the top items in David Reid's public commentary as executive director of the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce, who told the local beer press that there had not been much drawing people off Highway 101 into the heart of Warrenton before. The city itself made the brewery possible: Warrenton owns the building, granted a five-year lease, and paid for the new roof, exterior paint, roll-up doors, flood-proofing, and storm drain work before the tenants moved in.
That is not a lifestyle detail. It is a signal about what kind of small commercial investments the city is willing to underwrite in the marina district, and the last five years of local sale prices for waterfront-adjacent lots have moved in response to signals like that one. A Warrenton owner watching Regatta week from a new hometown patio is also watching, in slower motion, a small revitalization plan that the city has been quietly staging.
One small piece of housekeeping
A few things worth putting in the back pocket before Wednesday:
- Fort Stevens campground South Loops are closed for infrastructure upgrades this season. If a relative is planning to book last-minute for the Regatta weekend, the yurts and cabins are the more realistic ask, and both need to go through the Oregon State Parks reservation system rather than a call to the ranger station.
- Battery 245 is open seven days: Sunday and Monday through Thursday until 9:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday until 10:00 p.m. The kitchen closes with the doors. The pretzel plate and the fish and chips are the two items every early review has landed on.
- Beach driving from the Peter Iredale access south to the South Jetty is restricted from noon to midnight between May 1 and September 15. That rule catches every summer visitor at least once.
- The Regatta's own site is the most current schedule, and Astoria Yacht Club moves race locations above or below the Astoria Bridge depending on tides and wind.
What actually changed
The through-line here is small and specific. Warrenton residents have always had a way to be part of Regatta week. What they did not have, until last November, was a place inside their own city limits to gather during it. The town's first brewery is not the biggest business story on the North Coast this summer, and it is not the biggest event on the Regatta calendar. It is the reason this particular August week feels closer to home than the last twenty-eight of them.
For anyone tracking what the marina district and the streets around East Harbor Drive look like a year or three from now, this is the summer to start paying attention.
If you own in Warrenton and you are curious what the last year of activity around the marina, Battery 245, and the Fort Stevens corridor has meant for values on your specific street, Cindy Hawkins Colley at Heron Realty has been quietly tracking those blocks for years. Let's Connect when it makes sense.
