Two Millbrae Festivals Already Wrapped. The Season Has Two Weeks Left.

The Art & Wine Festival closed Broadway on September 6. The Mid-Autumn Festival closed it again on September 20. Two weekends, two festivals, and if you measure Millbrae's fall by those dates alone, the season already looks finished.

It isn't. The city's third-Thursday concert series still has one show left, Civic Center Plaza has a 21-year-old festival scheduled for October 4, and the Saturday farmers market that predates both September festivals keeps running underneath all of it. The two events everyone already knows about turn out to be the middle of the calendar, not the end.

The Third Thursday Series Has One Night Left

Beats, Brews & Vines runs every third Thursday from August through October, 6 to 8 pm, at the corner of Broadway and Hillcrest, free and open to the public according to the City of Millbrae's own event calendar. This year's three dates land on August 20, September 17, and October 15. Two of them are already behind us.

The location sits close enough to Millbrae's BART and Caltrain station that getting there doesn't require circling for street parking. A small lot on Magnolia Avenue between Hillcrest and La Cruz picks up the overflow.

A Festival Older Than It Gets Credit For

The Art & Wine Festival marks its 55th year this fall, which is the number that tends to get repeated. The Millbrae Japanese Culture Festival turns 21 on October 4, running 10:30 am to 4:30 pm at Civic Center Plaza on Library Avenue, according to the Millbrae Chamber of Commerce's event listing. Twenty-one years is long enough that the festival has outlasted several restaurant leases on Broadway, yet it lands in a spot on the calendar, two weeks after Mid-Autumn and eleven days before the last concert, where a casual scroll through "Millbrae fall events" tends to skip right past it.

The Market That Never Stopped Being the Real Anchor

The farmers market has run every Saturday since 1993, sponsored by the Millbrae Chamber of Commerce, in the city parking lot on Broadway between La Cruz and Victoria Avenue, 8 am to 1 pm. Thirty-three years predates both festivals and both remaining October dates by decades. Neither festival weekend cancels it and neither concert night replaces it. It is the one date on this list that shows up every single week regardless of what else is scheduled around it, which makes it the actual backbone of Millbrae's fall calendar rather than a supporting act to the bigger names.

What the Library Runs When Nothing Else Is Scheduled

Millbrae Library keeps its own calendar moving independent of downtown's festival schedule, and it runs on more days than the concert series does all season combined.

• Open Sewing: Monday through Saturday, hours vary by day
• Crafty Tuesdays: weekly, Tuesday afternoon
• English Conversation Club: Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday evening
• Digital Help Hub: weekly study group sessions
• Community Crochet Drop-In: Saturday mornings

Some of these run out of the library building itself. Others move down the street to the Millbrae Recreation Center, which sits inside Central Park at 477 Lincoln Circle, the same address where the city held its Coastal Cleanup event and Relay for Life this September. The recreation center and the park aren't two separate stops on a map. They're the same address doing double duty.

The Order That Actually Works

Lined up without doubling back, what's left of the season runs like this: the Japanese Culture Festival on October 4, any Saturday farmers market in between, the library's rotating weekday programs whenever they fit, and the final Beats, Brews & Vines show on October 15. After that, downtown Broadway's next scheduled outdoor gathering isn't another festival weekend. It's next summer's Fourth of July concert kickoff.

Whichever night you pick for the last concert, As Is Band closes out the season on October 15, and the Magnolia Avenue lot will be the closest place to leave the car.

Caitlin Beanan tracks Millbrae's calendar with the same attention she brings to its market, closely and by name. If you're curious what a home near Civic Center Plaza or the Broadway corridor is actually worth this fall, reach out to Caitlin Beanan for a straight answer.