On the positive side, this is a fun (or it should be, anyway) pedestrian friendly strip of shopping just off the beach. So many good opportunities for dining, shopping, and walking are among the highlights of strolling this stretch of Main Street.
But it is very, very congested (almost always) and any good dining opportunities are few and far between. Lots of nice fast food quickie spots though. Forget about BJ's as it is a madhouse, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with noise levels off-the-charts.
Maybe the best alternative is to find some good food and bring it on back to dine in your room. Wish we would have done that, BJ's pub was pure insanity and it takes a lot of poor service for us to register our displeasure and leave a $3 tip (yes, it was all that bad). Cold pizza, poor service, consider your options!
Still, Main Street/downtown has places to waste some time and maybe some money. Can't say this is a super-strong draw for us but it is nice to have a "Downtown" so close to the beach.
One of our great finds (oh, well , it should have been, anyway) was a small Shawarma shop, "Charlies", on Main Street. The owner is from Jerusalem so thought we'd give him a try. Our Shawarma/Doner Kabop taste buds are pretty sophisticated (having been honed in Europe at some of our favorite places) but ... the truth if it is, I make far better shawarma than this wonderful man makes. Chalk this up for a failure.
You can't win them all.