After six weeks of Alameda’s businesses and service providers jostling for position, voting in the 2026 Alameda Stars Community Awards competition has ended. And what a battle it has been! We have been thrilled by the support and engagement on the site and across social media platforms. It has been a pleasure to see how many businesses took this friendly competition seriously and how they encouraged their fans to support them by celebrating excellence in our community.
We launched Alameda Stars to uplift and recognize local businesses and service providers following the challenging years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus, Alameda’s only previous community awards program is no longer engaged. Alameda Stars engendered a huge level of participation from the community—just under 90,000 votes were cast for 1,995 contenders across 182 categories!
The rules of the competition were set up to allow participants to vote once per day per category for the duration of the contest. However, a few felt the need to create multiple accounts to vote for their chosen contenders. Our contest software can easily identify duplicate votes coming from the same user. So after voting ended, we conducted an audit to remove any suspected ballot-box stuffing. The voting is now finalized, and we’re ready to announce the results.
Contenders could appear in as many as five categories in the competition—21 different contenders achieved that goal. Unfortunately, none of them swept all the categories they were nominated for, but two of them won four of five. Julie’s Coffee & Tea Garden is the 2026 Alameda Star for Catering, Coffee Shop, Tea Shop, and Vegetarian/Vegan Food; Pacific Pinball Museum is Alameda’s 2026 Star for Children’s Activities, Date Night Activity, Kid’s Parties, and Museum.
A handful of organizations each garnered three Star awards in the 2026 competition. Rhythmix Cultural Works took top honors as Star Art Gallery and Arts Organization, and their Rising Seas programming was named Star Performance of the year. Kindred Running got the nod for three categories as well—Star Running/Racing Club, Star Shoe Store, and Star Sports Equipment Store. Faction Brewing scored a hat trick with Star Event Space, Star Live Music Venue, and Star Local Brewery/Distillery. Fresh off their one-year anniversary, Two Marys’ Mercantile won the 2026 Star for Boutique, Gift Store, and Thrift/Consignment/Vintage. Moxie bested the field for Star Brunch, Star Cocktails, and overall Star Restaurant.
Other significant 2026 multi-Star winners include the Alameda Food Bank, which was named Star Nonprofit and Star Community Organization, while Friends of the Alameda Animal Shelter was chosen as the Star for both Place to Volunteer and Pet Adoption. The 2026 Star for New Business and Eco-Friendly Business went to Replenish Marketplace. Domenico’s Italian Deli was chosen as the Star for both Lunch Place and Sandwiches, while Scolari’s was the choice for Star Burger and Star Food Truck. And the City of Alameda was awarded a Star for the annual 4th of July Parade, which was named the Star Event of the Year.
The full list of the 2026 Alameda Stars will be published in a series of articles in the Alameda Post and on our social media accounts this week, and the rankings of the top three finishers in each category are available on AlamedaStars.com. Today, we start by listing the community’s choices for Stars in the Arts and Culture & Personal Services divisions. On Wednesday, we will list the winners of the Business Services & Household Services divisions. Winners in the Food & Drink and Sports and Recreation divisions will be listed on Thursday, and Friday will feature the Retail, Community, & Kids and Family division winners. The Alameda Stars website will remain available to the public for the rest of the year, so you can check the standings anytime you like.
We have already reached out to notify the winners and will distribute awards during the week of March 2 to our 2026 Alameda Stars. If you see yourself listed but have not heard from us, please email [email protected]. In addition to bragging rights as a 2026 Alameda Star, each winner will receive a certificate of their accomplishment and a window cling showing the category in which they took top honors. The certificate is in full color and printed on durable waterproof paper, so even if it’s not framed, it will show off your accomplishment for a long time. The window clings are removable and will look great greeting visitors to your business.
Those Stars who have claimed their profiles on AlamedaStars.com and those who finished second and third in each category will also be able to download graphics from the site to share on their social media accounts and websites. If you haven’t already done so, you can still claim your profile—just go to AlamedaStars.com and type the name of your business into the big red search box and follow the instructions to register.
We have many to thank for making this competition such a success. First, our sponsors—the City of Alameda, Alameda Municipal Power, the Downtown Alameda business association, West Alameda Business Association, and Digifli—along with all of the advertisers on AlamedaStars.com, who helped underwrite the cost of this contest. We’re also deeply grateful to Maurice Ramirez, who shot and produced the amazing video of Alameda’s shopping districts that was central to the website and the competition’s marketing. Thanks also to Post board members Thushan Amarasiriwardena and Ophelia Nicandro for all the time they put in—this would not have been possible without their hard work. And finally, thanks to all the people at VoterFly, the developers of the software for the contest, who have been so responsive to our needs and provided such a robust platform.
We’re already preparing for our next competition in January 2027, and we welcome your input. If you have suggestions to make the contest better, please drop a line to [email protected] to let us know. We hope to include even more categories next year, and plan to hold a public event to bring the community together when we distribute awards to our 2027 Alameda Stars.
Adam Gillitt is the Publisher of the Alameda Post. Reach him at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Adam-Gillitt.
