The Old Orchard Farmers Market Didn't Come Back This Year. Here's What Did.
September 17, 2026
September 17, 2026
If you've lived in Webster Groves long enough, you probably have a Thursday habit built around Gazebo Park. Show up around 4, grab a bag of tomatoes, catch whatever chef demo is happening near the corner of Big Bend and South Old Orchard, walk home before dinner. That market ran there for more than a decade, and half the internet still describes it that way. Search around and you'll still find directory listings and neighborhood social pages confidently telling you it runs Thursdays, 3 to 6:30 p.m., May through October.
None of that is true anymore. The organization that runs it says plainly on its own site that the Thursday market at Gazebo Park is not coming back for the 2026 season. If you've been planning your week around a market that quietly stopped existing, you're not imagining anything. You're just reading outdated pages that never got updated.
What's worth knowing is what actually replaced it, and how it fits into the busier, longer calendar Old Orchard is running through the rest of this fall.
The people behind the old Thursday market didn't disappear. They split into two different events, each with its own personality.
The bigger one is called Oakwood + Amy's Market, hosted on the lots at Oakwood Salon and Amy's Cake Pop Shop, roughly 7987 to 7967 Big Bend Blvd. It runs on Sundays instead of Thursdays, and it's noticeably bigger than the old market ever was, typically 55 to 65 vendors compared to the Thursday market's smaller weekly rotation. There's a full bar handled by Off Elm, food trucks, and parking tucked behind Balkan Treat Box and Imo's Pizza. If you liked the old market for the crowd and the scale, this is the closer match.
The second is smaller and quieter: Maypop, hosted at Maypop Coffee & Garden Shop near Summit and Marshall avenues. Think slow mornings and a max of 15 vendors, heavier on baked goods, honey, and small-batch condiments than on produce hauls. Maypop also recently picked up a liquor license, so cocktails are coming alongside the market's usual coffee and brunch offerings.
There's also an occasional night market on the Oakwood/Amy's lot, with live music and food trucks under string lights. In years past, one of these nighttime markets has landed on the same weekend as Old Orchard's Fall Festival, which made for a genuinely full Saturday. Whether that overlap happens again this year hasn't been announced, so it's worth watching Oakwood + Amy's own channels if that's the kind of evening you're hoping to catch.
The short version: the market didn't shrink. It reorganized into two markets that serve two different moods, and most of the internet just hasn't caught up.
While the market rebuilt itself, the district's other recurring event kept running on schedule. The Old Orchard Gazebo Music Series is in its 21st season this year, six consecutive Friday evenings at Gazebo Park, 8180 Big Bend Blvd, free and running 7 to 8:30 p.m.
The season opened August 21 with singer-songwriter Javier Mendoza, who spent years writing songs for artists like Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin before launching his own bilingual roots-rock project, Hobo Cane. The following Friday brought the Red and Black Brass Band back to Old Orchard with a set that mixes jazz, soul, and pop. As of this week, three Fridays remain in the series, closing out with a lineup that spans Latin, R&B, acoustic rock, and classic country before summer officially hands off to fall. Bring a chair, grab carryout from one of the Old Orchard restaurants along Big Bend, and you've got a free Friday night that doesn't require a reservation anywhere.
A month after the Gazebo Series wraps, Old Orchard doesn't go quiet. It expands. The Old Orchard Fall Festival takes over Big Bend Boulevard between Dale and Summit avenues on Saturday and Sunday, October 24 and 25, running 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days, with an added activity area on Log Cabin Lane between Big Bend and East Frisco Avenue.
This year's festival is built around two music stages and 14 bands across the weekend, a noticeably bigger entertainment footprint than a single Friday act at the gazebo. The announced lineup includes Jake's Leg, Voodoo Funky Butt Brass Band, The Brothers Lazaroff, and the Webster Groves High School Jazz Band, with organizers expected to add more names as the date gets closer.
The vendor marketplace runs more than 55 booths of regional makers, with Crispy Sips, Glow Candle Co., Steele Caramels, and Everyone's Republic already confirmed. Food trucks Lomito Bonito and FarmTruck will be parked alongside Old Orchard's own restaurants, so you're not limited to festival food if you'd rather sit down somewhere with a menu.
Families get their own reason to show up. Cowboy Critters Petting Zoo returns with goats, pigs, donkeys, horses, ducks, and rabbits, and a Find the Ghost Bingo Contest sends kids around the district hunting for clues at participating businesses, with completed cards due by 3 p.m. Saturday for a prize drawing. In past years, trick-or-treating at participating storefronts has run that same Saturday afternoon, folding the neighborhood's early Halloween tradition into the same weekend.
There's a pattern underneath both of these calendars worth naming directly. When a business in Old Orchard closes, something else tends to move in fast, and it's rarely a stranger to the neighborhood.
The clearest recent example is the old Weber's Front Row space at 8169 Big Bend. When that closed, it didn't sit vacant for long. DD Mau, a fast-casual Vietnamese restaurant already established in Maryland Heights, opened a new location there in November 2025, run by owners Julie Truong Shih and Andrew Shih. It's a bigger footprint than either of their previous locations, seating 150 with an expanded menu, and it filled that corner within months rather than years.
That's consistent with how the rest of the district has behaved for a while. Old Orchard's mix of longer-running anchors like Balkan Treat Box, Frisco Barroom, and Civil Alchemy alongside newer additions like Union Studio and Dharma+Dwell isn't a district losing tenants and patching gaps. It's one where a closed storefront tends to become someone else's second or third location within the same calendar year. If you're the kind of resident who notices when a space goes dark and quietly worries about what's next, the recent track record here says: give it a few months, not years.
Put together, here's what's actually on the books for Big Bend Boulevard between now and the end of October:
None of this requires you to plan a visit to Webster Groves. If you're reading this, you probably already know where Gazebo Park is and which parking lot behind Balkan Treat Box actually has spots on a Sunday morning. This is just the update: the market moved, the concerts are almost done for the season, and the festival is bigger than it's been in past years. Old Orchard didn't slow down for fall. It just rearranged the furniture.
If you're the neighbor who ends up fielding questions from people thinking about a move to Webster Groves because they love what they see at events like these, I'd love to be a resource. I'm Stacy Deutschmann, and whether it's a friend asking about the market or a family member curious what a home near Old Orchard actually costs these days, I'm always glad to talk it through.
Let me guide you through the complexities of buying or selling your home, eliminating hassles and stress. I look forward to working with you!