Downtown White Bear Lake After Marketfest: A Late-Summer Guide for People Who Already Live Here

Marketfest closed out its 36th season on July 30, and if you live in White Bear Lake, that Thursday-night rhythm has probably shaped your summer for as long as you've lived here. The pony rides, the two music stages, the 200-plus vendors between 3rd and 4th Streets are part of the town's operating system from mid-June through the end of July.

Here is the useful thing to know in August: the more interesting version of downtown is the one that starts the week the tents come down. The retail and food additions that landed in 2026 aren't festival pop-ups. They are permanent, and most residents haven't fully worked them into their weekend routine yet.

The Calendar Doesn't Actually Empty Out

The Friday Farmers' Market runs 8 a.m. to noon straight through August, with dates on the city calendar including August 7 and continuing weekly. Night to Unite lands Tuesday, August 4 from 6 to 9 p.m. Manitou Days, the three-week festival that has anchored the town's summer for more than fifty years, closes with July 4 fireworks over the lake viewable from West Park and Memorial Beach, so if you missed it, that's a note for next year rather than this weekend.

The bigger date on the fall calendar is October 4. That's when La Vie Est Belle, the Lake Elmo gift and lifestyle boutique run by Kristin Rohman Rehkamp, opens a downtown White Bear Lake storefront with its holiday collection. Rehkamp is partnering with local curator Debbie Opt Staedt, who owns Happy Everything MN. If you already shop the Lake Elmo location, the WBL store is close enough to your weekly errands that it's worth putting on the calendar.

The Coffee Cluster Is the Most Underused Part of Downtown

The Star Tribune's Joy Summers spent a day working through White Bear Lake's food and drink options and made a specific observation worth borrowing: this is a town best explored on foot, through mural-adorned alleyways and up to rooftop patios, not from a car window. The independent coffee scene is the clearest example. Three shops sit within a short walk of each other, and each is doing something distinct.

Cajeta opened a little over a year ago inside Avalon Mall and has the kind of review profile that's genuinely rare, roughly a perfect rating across a couple hundred reviews. The mazapan latte tastes closer to a peanut-butter coffee than anything on a chain menu. If you've walked past Avalon Mall and assumed there was nothing inside worth stopping for, that's the correction.

Behind Anchor, in the alley between the parking lot and the back of the coffee house, is PLNT BSD, a small vegan smoothie-bowl stand. It's the kind of thing you'd only find if someone told you it existed, which is roughly the point of a guide written for people who live here.

What Actually Opened in 2026

Two additions since spring:

Bear Dogs, 1595 County Road E East. Brothers Logan Neal and Connor Podewils, both White Bear Lake Area High School graduates, opened the hot-dog restaurant in April 2026 with their parents Ryan and Nicole Podewils. The walls are painted black and orange, the space is set up as a sports hangout with jerseys on display, and the operation is pointed straight at local youth sports. They've partnered with the White Bear Lake boys and girls lacrosse programs to feed tailgates, and they've shown up at events like Kidz 'n Biz at Oneka Elementary in Hugo. If your kids play in the district, this is a place you'll end up eventually.

Humble Roots Boutique expanded from its Centerville storefront at 7095 Centerville Road into a shared downtown White Bear Lake space with Oak & Iron. Owners Tiffany Downing and Bisson did a soft opening around the Spring Fling event in April 2026. The point isn't the store category (there are plenty of boutiques); the point is that Humble Roots and La Vie Est Belle both chose White Bear Lake in the same calendar year, which is the kind of retail signal that shows up in property values before it shows up in the MLS.

A Saturday Loop That Uses What's Actually There

If you have out-of-town family visiting in August or September, this is the walk that shows the town without pretending it's something it isn't:

1. Start at the Friday market if you can shift the visit by a day, or start with breakfast at Café Cravings if it's Saturday. It has a longer history downtown and reliably does the weekend brunch category.
2. Walk to Cajeta at Avalon Mall for a mid-morning coffee. Order the cajeta latte and one concha to split.
3. Head to Washington Square. Duck into Anchor, then swing behind it for a PLNT BSD smoothie bowl to eat on the walk.
4. Lunch at The Brickhouse at 4746 Washington Square. Order the pork ribs. They are on the menu as an appetizer, a lunch, and a dinner entrée, which tells you what the kitchen thinks of them.
5. Shop the Washington Square block. Humble Roots plus Oak & Iron are in one space now; add La Vie Est Belle to the loop after October 4.
6. Late afternoon: gelato at Orso Bianco at 2216 3rd Street, which does authentic Italian gelato and sorbetto in-house with ingredients from Italy.
7. Dinner on the patio at Manitou Bar & Kitchen. The ivy-covered patio off Highway 61 is the one visitors always photograph, and the interior has a fireplace for the shoulder-season evenings when the patio is finally too cool.

If you'd rather stay closer to the water, Rudy's Redeye Grill at 4940 Highway 61 is the alternative for dinner. Pizzeria Pezzo at 2143 4th Street and White Bear Bar at 2135 4th Street handle the casual end.

The Anchor / Margaux's Table Detail Most Residents Miss

Anchor Coffee House at 4742 Washington Square is a coffee shop six days a week. On Saturday evenings, the same space becomes Margaux's Table, an intimate restaurant run by owner Margaret Doran. The menu changes monthly based on what's in season and what Doran is cooking. There's no permanent posted menu; you subscribe to the newsletter or follow the restaurant on social media for the current month's dinners and reservation windows.

Two useful implications. First, the reservation strategy for a special-occasion dinner is different than at a conventional restaurant. You need to be on the list before the seatings open, not after. Second, the fact that a coffee shop moonlights as one of downtown's more sought-after dinner spots tells you something about the density of this district. Real estate agents talk about walkability as an amenity. This is what it actually looks like on the ground: one address, two operating hours, and enough demand to justify both.

Why This Matters for People Who Live Here

The point of following what's opening on Washington Square and County Road E isn't nostalgia or civic pride. It's practical. Retail density in a lakeside downtown is fragile. When Cajeta, Bean.Co, Bear Dogs, Humble Roots, and La Vie Est Belle all commit to storefronts inside a single calendar year, that's the market telling you the ground floor of downtown is healthy. When a Star Tribune food writer builds a full itinerary around your town, that's an outside signal confirming what long-time residents already sensed. Both of those inputs eventually show up in what buyers are willing to pay to be within a short walk of Washington Square.

For now, though, use them the way they're meant to be used. Get the cajeta latte before someone in the family group chat discovers it and takes credit. Try the ribs at Brickhouse. Put October 4 on the calendar.

If you own a home near downtown and are curious what the past year of retail investment has done to values within a walking radius of Washington Square, Curt Adams can pull the comparable sales and give you a straight read on where your property sits today. Request a Free Home Valuation whenever you're ready.