Highland Ave, Manhattan Beach

Man oh man, I love Manhattan Beach. It's my favorite part of Los Angeles and it ties Malibu for my favorite beach. The beach is definitely a lot younger than Malibu and the properties are more on top of each other. The local restaurants and bars definitely reflect a younger crowd as far as beach cities go; but, it's so laid back it's hard to care about the young people. Highland Ave is one of the busier streets in the main area of MB. It's more of a driving street than walking or hanging out. But, it is the closest busy street to the water which provides quite the impressive view at sunset.
Even though Highland doesn't have the most exciting row of eateries and bars, some of my favorite are on this street. Pancho's is on Highland in the El Porto area. It's a little pricey as far as Mexican food goes, but it is so wonderful. The decor, the food, the ambience . . .everything about it is pretty fantastic. Just a bit further south are two bars that we hit up all the time: OB's and Harry O's. They're your typical semi-divey, raucous beach bars . . .which means they're awesome. Weird thing about OB's: they have fantastic tacos no tuesday night taco night. Who knew?
We used to walk up there and eat tacos, get drunk and watch the ocean. They have some pretty fun cover bands at Harry O's on weekend nights.
Just down the street is Unlce Bills Pancake House (it's on Highland right around Manhattan Beach Blvd). The wait is always ridiculous for weekend brunch but it's pretty worth it. Riding your bike there for breakfast and then taking a long cruise is one of the more sublime days you can have in the summer. It's a great spot.
As far as living, I wouldn't live on Highland Ave. It's a really busy street so the traffic's not ideal and it can be quite loud. The property value is terribly high because of the proximity to the beach. But, because the street is so busy, if you can't live closer to the beach, then I would live a little further back just to stay off of this street. But, all in all, it's hard to call any street in Manhattan Beach bad.