Exciting Events and Activities in St. Louis
The Tower Grove Farmers' Market Ends On Halloween Morning. The Park's Newest Building Is Planned For The Months After
Exciting Events and Activities in St. Louis
The Tower Grove Farmers' Market holds its last Saturday of 2026 on October 31, from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The operator's schedule shows no winter market in Tower Grove Park. For most of the year, the market has given the park a weekly reason to show up. After this Saturday, that weekly anchor is gone until spring.
This year the park has something new waiting behind the Piper Palm House. The Event Support Building at 4257 Northeast is built for an all-day routine in every season. Its restrooms are slated to stay open year-round, its kitchen is planned to start serving at 8 a.m., and its tenant, Rockwell Beer Company, calls the concept "year-round, weather-dependent." The market's season is ending, and the building is planned to fill the time it leaves open.
The park's own calendar entry says the Saturday market runs "April through November 1." The market operator's schedule lists the 2026 season as April 4 through October 31. November 1 is a Sunday, so October 31 is the last Saturday. Plan on the operator's date.
That puts the season's last market on Halloween morning, two days after this post goes up. It's an early start before an evening of trick-or-treating. In the long gap between that morning and the next market season, the new building is where the park's daily activity is meant to continue.
The building came out of Tower Grove Park's $16 million Common Ground Campaign. According to St. Louis Magazine, park leaders planned the new event support building with a concessionaire in mind from the start, back in the early days of the pandemic. The park held a ribbon cutting on July 16, 2026, for the finished Event Support Building with the Park's Beer Garden, along with the new Director's Croquet Garden and the restoration of four pavilions. The same campaign also paid for rehabilitating the Lily Pond. You can watch the ceremony on the park's blog.
Most of the park's most recognizable architecture is seasonal: open pavilions, a lily pond, a croquet lawn. The Event Support Building is meant to work in January as well as June. As St. Louis Magazine reported, the freestanding structure includes:
The year-round restrooms are the line on that list with the biggest effect on daily park routines. A morning run, a cold-weather dog walk, or a toddler's trip to the playground all work better when a restroom is open in December.
The plan also calls for closing the street next to the building to cars before the beer garden opens. That would free up space for vendor markets, beer events, and community pop-ups. For winter, Rockwell has said it will look into using the Piper Palm House for extra seating and special events. Both are announced plans, and neither has a confirmed date.
This is Rockwell's second park beer garden. The first, at Francis Park, is known for tavern-style pizza. Tower Grove's menu is new, built by chef Andrew Cisneros around rotisserie chicken and barbecue. It draws on his restaurant Brasas and on the Pollo a la Brasa he made his signature.
The details in St. Louis Magazine's July preview are specific. The chicken comes by the quarter, half, or whole bird after 16 hours in a marinade of citrus, beer, oyster sauce, herbs, and spices. Brisket, pulled pork, St. Louis-style spare ribs, and smoked-then-grilled wings come out of an Ole Hickory smoker that is made in Cape Girardeau and burns Missouri white oak. The one-page menu also lists burnt ends, tacos on beef tallow tortillas, bowls with garlic rice and smoked bean stew, a Brasas Salad, and a trio of empanadas that includes a wild mushroom and ricotta filling.
The drinks are where the off-season planning shows up. Besides Rockwell's flagship beers, the plan includes Goshen Coffee Roasters coffee, hydration drinks, canned cocktails, frozen drinks, and seasonal hot drinks in the colder months. A breakfast menu of burritos, sandwiches, and taco bowls is in development. The planned hours are 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
Rockwell co-owner Chris Hulse explained the motive to St. Louis Magazine: "We are always looking for ways to improve the city and its livability. The brewery and the two beer gardens bear that out. We want to capitalize on the potential that we feel is already here." Rockwell's director of operations, Liz Weis, told First Alert 4 that the aim was "serving that community and providing something there in the park for parkgoers so they have something to look forward to in addition to spending time in the park."
The opening date has moved. In July, St. Louis Magazine expected the beer garden to open around Labor Day. Its early-October openings roundup still listed Tower Grove Beer Garden as coming soon, with "October" as the timing. That leaves two possibilities for the end of October: the windows are open, or they are about to be. Before you plan breakfast around it, check Rockwell Beer Company or the Tower Grove Park calendar for confirmed hours.
Until the beer garden opens, the 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. schedule and the year-round promise are both plans.
Without a weekly market, the park's late-season calendar becomes a few dated events. Here they are, from the last market morning through the first holiday weekend in the park:
| Date | What | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday, October 31 | Last Tower Grove Farmers' Market of 2026, 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. | Tower Grove Park |
| Saturday, November 7 | Osage Culture Traveling Trunk program, 2 to 4 p.m. | Carpenter Library, 3309 S. Grand Boulevard |
| Sunday, December 13 | 10th annual Frosted 5K and Family Fun Run | Tower Grove Park |
| Sunday, December 13 | Frosted Pop-Up Bar | Piper Palm House |
| Sunday, December 13 | Frosted Holiday Market | Music Stand Loop |
On December 13, the park and Rockwell show up together. Runners 21 and older get a complimentary Rockwell beer, according to the Frosted 5K page, and registration is open at early-bird pricing. The Frosted Pop-Up Bar is listed at the Piper Palm House. The event page doesn't say whether the beer garden building next door is involved, so treat them as separate.
The Event Support Building connects the park to the streets around it. It serves as the trailhead for the Tower Grove Connector greenway. The City of St. Louis expects phase two of the Connector to start in late 2026. That phase is the bikeway planned to link Tower Grove Park with Cortex. The bike repair station and racks at the building fit that plan. The building is meant to be a stopping point for people riding through, too.
On foot, the new spots worth a detour sit along Shaw Avenue. Big Club Bar opened at 5200 Shaw on September 5, and PiFi Pizza, from the Rock Star Tacos team, is listed for a late-October opening at 4916 Shaw. On the east side of the park, audeō, from the LemonGrass team, is coming to 3161 S. Grand in late 2026. None of these replaces the market. Together with a beer garden that plans to serve coffee at 8 a.m., they give a Saturday morning in November a route through the park.
Stephanie Perry, director of the park's community programs, summed up the park's standing in St. Louis Magazine: "If you're not from St. Louis, Forest Park is your favorite park. If you are from St. Louis, it's Tower Grove Park." The Common Ground Campaign built a structure designed to keep that true through the winter, with restrooms open year-round and a kitchen planned to start serving at 8 a.m.
At Svoboda Shell, we track the details that shape daily life around the park: which buildings are newly open, what the Connector will reach, and which Shaw Avenue storefronts have filled in. If you live near Tower Grove and want to know how the park's new pieces are changing the blocks around it, start your home journey with Svoboda Shell.