Beacon's Main Street Is Losing Some Long-Running Owners This Fall, and a Dark Corner at 142 Main Has Reopened
October 22, 2026
October 22, 2026
"We're calling it 'retirement' for now, but as you know, artists never retire," Steve and Barbara Riddle told The Highlands Current this month, after closing Marion Royael Gallery at 159 Main St. at the end of September. They said they plan to keep painting and see what comes next.
The same Oct. 16 roundup in The Current listed three more Main Street closings: a book arts gallery, a breakfast-and-lunch cafe and a themed restaurant. Taken together, the owners give the same kinds of reasons. After a decade or two, they are retiring, moving closer to family or reaching a natural end. These places are closing because the people behind them chose to stop. That shapes what's left to do this fall. Most of the goodbyes have already happened, one has a firm date on the calendar, and a corner that had been empty since spring 2025 has a new tenant.
Each of these businesses reflected its owners, and each owner explained the decision publicly.
If you have a gallery membership card or a punch card from one of these places, those doors are already closed. The Pandorica is the only one of the four still open.
Shirley Hot's connection to 165 Main St. goes back further than the Doctor Who theme. She started as a server at The Cup & Saucer Tea Room in 2000 and ran that tea room for seven years. In 2014 she reopened the space as The Pandorica, a restaurant devoted to the BBC series. After 26 years in the space, she has announced the restaurant will close in mid-November. "The thought of leaving not only the restaurant but also the wonderful people I've met here and those I have yet to meet fills me with sadness," she told The Current.
The send-off is the Wibbly Wobbly Whovian Wholloween Cosplay Bash. The event page lists these details:
| Detail | What the event page says |
|---|---|
| Date and time | Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, 1 to 4 p.m. |
| Location | The Pandorica, 165 Main St., Beacon |
| Food | A buffet of many of the restaurant's familiar dishes |
| Music | Cat Smith, who has played there before |
| Costume | Cosplay welcome, not required |
| Audience | Family friendly |
Hot's note on the page heads off any confusion with an earlier farewell event: "This IS our last event!" She also wrote that she hopes to see "how some of our young cosplayers have grown after all these years and also the new generation of Whovians." Tickets are sold through the event page. No exact last day of regular service has been announced beyond mid-November, so if you want one more ordinary weeknight meal there, plan on early November.
Three of these addresses fall between 142 and 165 Main St. That makes the newest arrival at the low end of that range worth knowing about.
The Tito Santana Taqueria space at 142 Main St. went dark in May 2025, when the city ordered it closed over code violations, according to The Current. That October, Irvin Gonzaga, a co-owner of Tlahco Taqueria in Pleasant Valley, told the paper the restaurant planned to expand into the space and open in January or February 2026. It took longer than that. WPDH reported a soft opening set for Thursday, Oct. 1, 4 to 9 p.m., after more than a year without a taqueria on that corner.
According to Chronogram, Tlahco comes from the family behind Casa Ortega, the Wappingers Falls restaurant known for pairing traditional and contemporary Mexican cooking. The Beacon menu is expected to carry Tlahco favorites:
One practical note before you go. The hours on Tlahco's website are Tuesday through Saturday noon to 9 p.m., Sunday noon to 8 p.m., and closed Mondays, but the site lists its other locations and not Beacon. WPDH reported before the opening that regular Beacon hours had not been announced. Check with the restaurant before planning a Monday dinner around it.
One more change is off Main Street. Saint Rita's Music Room opened in July 2025 at the KuBe Art Center, in the former Beacon High School building at 211 Fishkill Ave. It has temporarily closed to install a fire sprinkler system, The Current reported on Oct. 2. The paper reported that Building Inspector Bryan Murphy ordered the sprinklers because of the crowds that gather for the venue's music, theater and open mic nights.
Ethan Cohen, co-owner of the building, called it a "short-term challenge." He said Saint Rita's will reopen as soon as the city allows and that the 45-plus other tenants at KuBe are not affected. No reopening date has been announced. If your November nights usually include an open mic there, you'll need another plan for now.
The closings are spread across Main Street, and so are the places holding steady.
The Beacon Farmers' Market lists itself at 223 Main St., open every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., year-round. On Nov. 1, you can shop the market in the morning and still get to The Pandorica's 1 p.m. start.
For Friday and Saturday nights, the Towne Crier Main Stage has a full November schedule:
Venue calendars change, so check the listing before buying tickets. The Eileen Ivers show falls the night after Thanksgiving, which works if you have family in town for the long weekend.
No new tenants have been announced for 159, 165, 469 or 472 Main St. Those four spaces are the ones to watch this winter.
If you'd like to talk through what's changing on your stretch of Beacon, or anywhere else in the Hudson Valley, The Live Upstate Team is happy to help. Schedule a Free Consultation and we'll pick it up from there.
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