Happy Tuesday, Walnut Creek!

💡 Did you know: Heather Farm Park is named after a racehorse. In 1921 a gambling hall owner named John Marchbank bought 255 acres out in Ygnacio Valley and renamed the property after his champion stallion, King Heather. He put in a half mile training track and a 48 stall stable, and by the 1930s it was the largest thoroughbred breeding operation west of the Mississippi. MGM shot part of a Clark Gable racing picture there in 1931. The city bought about fifty acres of it after a 1965 parks bond, and the park opened in 1970.

This is the big one. Oktoberfest takes Civic Park East on Friday and Saturday, free to walk into, with two stein holding contests, a yodeling contest, eight local breweries and twenty five food vendors. Around it: Bob Costas is at the Lesher on Tuesday night, the library is letting people pet a cactus, the symphony plays a Northern California premiere, and a gallery full of tufted yarn opens Saturday evening.

Let’s get to it.

— Sean Casey

Downtown’s Oktoberfest runs two days at Civic Park East and it is free to walk into as long as you RSVP. Friday is the shorter, louder night. BlowMusik plays Bavarian brass from 5:30, the Nature Friends Schuhplattler slap dancers go on at five and again at a quarter to eight, and Mad Apple closes it down. The stein holding contest is at six, the yodeling contest at a quarter to seven.

Saturday opens at noon and runs nine hours, with yodeling at 12:45, stein holding at 1:45 and a costume contest at 2:45. Eight local breweries pour in the Biergarten, twenty five food vendors cover everything from bratwurst to donuts, and a single Kids Zone pass covers the inflatables, the giant slide, the train and the petting zoo for both days. A few things to know before you go: Ticket booths are cashless, parking at 1111 Civic Drive costs $10, and bike valet is free.

📍 Where: Civic Park East, 1375 Civic Dr.
📅 When: Friday, September 25 | 5:00–10:00 PM • Saturday, September 26 | 12:00–9:00 PM
💲 Price: Free with RSVP

Oktoberfest Details

The Lesher Foundation’s Newsmakers series brings Bob Costas to town tonight. The Emmy-winning sportscaster has spent more than four decades covering the Olympics, World Series and NBA Finals, interviewing legendary athletes along the way. Expect behind-the-scenes stories and his perspective on some of sports’ biggest moments.

One thing to know before buying: Only simulcast seats remain in the Vukasin Theatre, where you’ll watch a live video feed of his talk rather than see him in person. The box office lists availability as limited.

📍 Where: Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Dr.
📅 When: Tuesday, September 22 | 7:30–9:00 PM
💲 Price: From $45, simulcast viewing

Tickets

The Ruth Bancroft Garden is hauling a plant petting zoo over to the Walnut Creek Library on Wednesday afternoon, which means a table of live succulents you are actually allowed to touch and a cardboard cactus craft to take home. Free, all ages, no registration, one hour in the second floor Oak View Room.

If you want the grown up version of the same subject, the garden itself hosts Cacti of the Atacama the next evening. Former garden horticulturist Szymon Szary spends an hour on a cactus hunting trip through the Chilean desert and up into the high Andes.

📍 Where: Walnut Creek Library, 1644 N. Broadway • The Ruth Bancroft Garden, 1552 Bancroft Rd.
📅 When: Wednesday, September 23 | 4:00–5:00 PM • Thursday, September 24 | 5:30–6:30 PM
💲 Price: Free • $20–$35

A Prickly Experience | Cacti of the Atacama

California Symphony opens its run at the Hofmann with Donato Cabrera conducting, and the middle of the program is the reason to go. Jennifer Higdon’s Cello Concerto gets its Northern California premiere with Julian Schwarz as soloist, framed by Sibelius’s The Oceanides and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.

An hour and forty five minutes including a twenty minute intermission. There is a free half hour talk an hour before curtain, student tickets are $25 in any tier, and you are allowed to take your drink to your seat.

📍 Where: Hofmann Theatre, Lesher Center, 1601 Civic Dr.
📅 When: Saturday, September 26 | 7:30 PM • Sunday, September 27 | 4:00 PM
💲 Price: $50–$110, students $25 any tier

Program and Tickets

Oktoberfest will eat most of Saturday, but two things downtown are worth working around it. The Bedford opens High Pile: Concepts in Tufting with a party from five to seven, a whole gallery of work made with a tufting gun, which is the tool behind every shaggy yarn rug that has crossed your feed this year. Five dollars at the door, free for anyone twelve or under. The gallery’s usual pay what you can rate does not apply to opening nights, so do not turn up expecting it.

Earlier in the day the Makers Market sets up on Broadway Plaza Street between Nordstrom and Macy’s with jewelry, candles, glass, local honey and live music. Free, and dogs are welcome. Macy’s is also running mobile pet adoptions with Joybound from nine to eleven that morning, in case last week’s festival left you thinking about it.

📍 Where: Bedford Gallery, 1601 Civic Dr. • Broadway Plaza, 1275 Broadway Plaza
📅 When: Saturday, September 26 | Gallery 5:00–7:00 PM • Market 11:00 AM–5:00 PM
💲 Price: $5, free for 12 and under • Market free

High Pile Opening | Makers Market

Palmetto Superfoods is running a free outdoor pilates class on the plaza outside its shop Sunday morning, forty five minutes led by TruFusion, then açaí bowls and smoothies at the kiosk with skincare samples from LUSH. Bring your own mat. They say there will be a limited number of spares, which is not the same as there being one for you.

It is free, but you do have to reserve a spot, and the registration page was already flagged as low when we checked. When it wraps at ten, the Walnut Creek Farmers’ Market runs until one on Locust between Cole and Lacassie, a short walk north. First hour of parking is free at the Grower’s Square garage on N. California. Service animals only at the market, so this is not the morning for the dog.

📍 Where: Palmetto Superfoods, 114 S. Broadway • Market on Locust St. between Cole and Lacassie
📅 When: Sunday, September 27 | Pilates 8:30–10:00 AM • Market 9:00 AM–1:00 PM
💲 Price: Free • Free

Reserve a Spot | Farmers’ Market

🏛️ The city wants to talk about 2050. Walnut Creek is updating its General Plan, the document that governs what gets built and where for the next couple of decades, and the first community workshop is Thursday evening at the Civic Park Community Center. Drop in any time between 5:30 and 7:30. There is an interactive map for weighing in on housing, jobs, parks and gathering places, plus food, kids’ activities and raffle prizes. A virtual version goes up afterward for anyone who cannot make it. City of Walnut Creek

🐾 The Ygnacio Valley Petco closed Monday. The store at 2820 Ygnacio Valley Road in The Orchards shut for good on September 21, about ten years after it opened. No reason was given and no replacement tenant has been named. The nearest remaining locations are 1301 S. California Blvd. here in town and 1150 Concord Ave. in Concord. Bay Area Telegraph

🛏️ Saatva has opened downtown. The mattress brand has taken the former Sleep Number space at 1619 Mt. Diablo Blvd., which it first signaled back in June. Beyond the Creek

📚 Walnut Creek kids are reading for the art and music budget. The Walnut Creek Education Foundation’s sixth annual Read-a-thon has TK through eighth graders at all seven Walnut Creek School District schools logging minutes through Friday, September 25. It pays for art, music, science lab and libraries across the district, and this year’s goal is 700,000 minutes and $210,000. Last year’s readers logged just over a million minutes and raised $217,000. The reading stops Friday, but pledges stay open through September 30, so there is still time to back somebody’s kid. Walnut Creek Education Foundation

Twelve minutes over the hill, Moraga throws its Pear and Wine Festival on Saturday, and the pears are not a theme somebody invented for the poster. A one acre stand of hundred year old Bartlett trees still grows at Canyon and Camino Pablo, volunteers pick it every August, and the pies sold at the festival come out of that harvest. Between 1914 and 1944 the Moraga Company ran what was reportedly the largest pear operation in California, shipping east under the Moraga name.

Free to get in and free to park. The House Rockers play the bandshell from noon, there is a petting zoo with a mini donkey, Captain Vineyards pours by the glass, and the Kiwanis and Lions clubs handle the barbecue. A new permanent sculpture called The Moraga Pear gets its ribbon cutting at 10:30, half an hour before the gates open. The pies reportedly sell out by two, so do that part first.

📍 Where: Moraga Commons Park, 1425 St. Mary’s Rd., Moraga
📅 When: Saturday, September 26 | 11:00 AM–4:00 PM
💲 Price: Free, pear pies $25 and $30 gluten free

Festival Details

Oktoberfest closes out downtown’s festival season, but there is one more big date on the calendar. Once Upon a Street returns to Broadway Plaza on Saturday, October 17 for the center’s 75th birthday, billed as a royal celebration. The plaza opened in October 1951 with thirty eight stores and fifteen hundred free parking spaces, so the number is real and the anniversary is worth a look.

📍 Where: Broadway Plaza, 1275 Broadway Plaza
📅 When: Saturday, October 17 | 11:00 AM–2:00 PM
💲 Price: Free

Once Upon a Street

🥗 Weekly Walnut recipe: Walnut Bread — two cups of toasted walnuts kneaded into a honey and olive oil dough, two round loaves, about three hours start to finish. Built for exactly the cheese and beer you are going to carry home from Civic Park.

🎵 Who we are listening to: BlowMusik - In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus — the San Francisco oompah band playing the Oktoberfest main stage Friday at 5:30, doing the Hofbräuhaus drinking song.

🙏 Positive news around the globe: Three Harvard students won this year’s US James Dyson Award for a low cost infrared headset that screens a young athlete for concussion in about a minute, so a coach on the sideline has something better than a guess. Read Article

✨ A town that holds a yodeling contest twice in one weekend is a town doing something right.

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