Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival 2026: Dates, Dining & Movie Night

"I don't think the name Half Moon Bay Brewing would really fit anywhere except for Half Moon Bay," Craig Caroll, the company's CEO and president, told the Almanac this summer. "So this is probably the second and last one we're going to be doing."

That second location opened on Main Street in June. It sits directly across from the IDES Grounds, where the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off sets up every October. For anyone who lives on the Coastside, this means pumpkin season in 2026 now has two weekends. The famous one is October 17 and 18. The quieter one starts a week earlier with a new movie night at Carter Park and the Monday morning weigh-off. During that earlier week, the street is open, parking works the way it normally does, and Main Street's newest businesses are as easy to reach as they will be all month.

A downtown that lost three taps last year

The new openings matter because of what came before them. The Almanac's July report described how the Coastside's drinking scene "took a hit" in 2025 with the closures of Blue Ocean Brewing, Sacrilege Brewery + Kitchen and Tripp Distillery. The same article counted the replacements arriving on Main Street. Half Moon Bay Brewing took over the former Sacrilege space, a wine bar called Lab & Hound was on the way, and a taproom called Tap Yard on Main was projecting a late-2026 opening.

By the end of September, two of those three are open. That gives the October calendar somewhere to land that it didn't have a year ago.

Saturday, October 10: a first-year tradition at Carter Park

The newest event of the season starts at 6 p.m. on Saturday, October 10. The first annual Moonlight Movie Night will screen Grow at John L. Carter Memorial Park, 10 Stone Pine Road. The festival organizers bill it as "a new community tradition bringing neighbors, families and friends together."

The event works like dinner and a movie. Local restaurant partners take advance orders that you pick up on your way to the park, and organizers strongly recommend ordering ahead. One of those partners is Lab & Hound Wine Bar & Tasting Room at 315 Main Street. Its movie-night menu has a $25 charcuterie board with three cheeses and one cured meat, sized for two to four people, and a $20 hummus and crudité plate with seed crackers. Both are gluten free.

For many people, that order will be their first stop at Lab & Hound. Visit Half Moon Bay lists the bar as a September 2026 opening run by Kara and Marc Baker, both Half Moon Bay natives. The menu covers California wines, craft beer and cider, and boards of local meat and cheese. A July article forecast an August opening and posted projected hours. The visitor bureau's later listing shows the opening slipped to September, so check the bar's Instagram for current hours before you go.

Monday, October 12: the weigh-off, and lunch across the street

The 53rd Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off starts at 7 a.m. on Monday, October 12, at the IDES Grounds, 735 Main Street. The prize money explains why growers drive in from across the West. First place pays $9 per pound, and a world-record pumpkin earns a $30,000 total prize.

Last year's winner shows what $9 a pound can add up to. Brandon Dawson of Santa Rosa won in 2025 with a 2,346-pound pumpkin. At this year's rate, a pumpkin that size would earn more than $21,000 before any record bonus. The official results page still shows the 2025 results, and this year's numbers will appear after the scales close on the 12th.

The weigh-off falls on a weekday, a week before the festival. Main Street isn't closed that day, and the crowd is a fraction of festival size. A free morning gives you an easy route from the scales to a table.

Half Moon Bay Brewing on Main is at 730 Main, next door to By the Teashore. It opens at 11:30 a.m. daily and closes at 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The patio is dog friendly. The beer list matches the harbor location, Mavericks American Amber included. The food is different. Caroll says the Main Street menu focuses "more on the local ranches and farms," while the harbor menu leans on local fishermen. He calls the braised English short ribs, served with garlic mashed potatoes, a must-order at $34. The double-patty cheeseburger made with local beef and steak fries is $19.

If you'd rather have a morning menu, By the Teashore at 724 Main serves British comfort food: breakfast, tea, soups, pies and tarts, and tea sandwiches. The visitor bureau first listed it as a downtown newcomer in August 2025.

October 17 and 18: the weekend the street closes

The 54th Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival runs October 17 and 18, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Admission is free. The parade steps off at noon on Saturday.

The weekend's road closures cover more than festival hours, and they matter most to anyone running errands or heading over the hill.

The organizers also list parking at the south end of Main near Metzgar, at Half Moon Bay High School just north of Highway 92, at Our Lady of the Pillar Church, and at the Community Center and Shoreline Station complex on Kelly Avenue. Local nonprofits run many of these lots and charge a small fee. For anyone driving in from the Bayside, the official directions suggest Highway 1 from the north, or Highway 84 to Highway 1 from the south, instead of sitting on 92. The festival points transit riders to SamTrans and 511 but doesn't publish a dedicated shuttle schedule.

Half Moon Bay Brewing Company's festival presence is a separate operation from its Main Street dining room. The company has sponsored the festival since 2005. It serves beer from a ten-tap trailer at the Take 5 Lounge, set up in the Half Moon Bay Veterinary parking lot at 645 Correas Street at Purissima, with sports on a giant LED screen. Brewmaster James Costa's Pumpkin Harvest Ale is built on the company's amber, with pumpkin added to both the mash and the boil. The festival page says it is on tap at the Brewing Company through the end of November.

What's open on Main Street, and what's changed

The week before the festival is when these businesses are easiest to reach. Here are the 2026 changes along Main Street:

• Lab & Hound Wine Bar & Tasting Room, 315 Main. Opened September 2026.
• Dead Wax Records, 330 Main. Opened June 24, 2026, selling new and used vinyl, turntables and record-cleaning supplies. The shop is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays and open until 7 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Its hours page notes that special-event hours may vary, so check before festival weekend.
• SeaBreeze Art Collective, 519 Main. Listed as an April 2026 opening. Saviz Boutique moved to 545 Main the same month.
• Half Moon Bay Brewing on Main, 730 Main. Opened June 2026 in the former Sacrilege space.
• Crows Nest. The women's boutique, open since 2013, closed in July, Coastside News reported.
• Tap Yard on Main. As of the Almanac's July report, the taproom was projecting a late-2026 opening.

For pumpkins away from downtown, the festival's patch listing names Farmer John's Pumpkin Farm at 850 North Cabrillo Highway, north of downtown, and notes that other patches are spread along Highways 92 and 1.

Put together, the calendar has three dates. Order from Lab & Hound for Carter Park on Saturday the 10th, watch the scales at 735 Main on Monday the 12th, and plan for Main Street to stay closed from Saturday morning the 17th until about 10 p.m. Sunday the 18th.

If you're weighing a move to the Coastside or within it, and you want to know how a downtown like this one feels the other fifty weeks of the year, Nick Delis can help with that. Schedule a private Peninsula market consultation, and we'll talk through Half Moon Bay the way it works for the people who already live there.