Most people treat farmers market season like a light switch. It's on from May through some point in the fall, then the weather turns and it's off. That mental model works fine until the Saturday you drive to Cherry Creek Shopping Center for what you assumed was a mid-October market run and find an empty lot on the east side by Macy's.
Cherry Creek Fresh Market, the largest and most heavily marketed market in the metro, closes for the season on October 10, 2026. That is not a typo and it is not the outlier you would expect. The market billed as the "Cadillac of farmers markets" wraps up nearly a full month before several smaller, less-hyped neighborhood markets across the metro even start thinking about their last Saturday. If you have been assuming every market in Denver runs on the same clock, the actual shutdown sequence is going to rearrange your fall weekends.
The Big One Closes First
Cherry Creek Fresh Market runs Saturdays from May 2 through October 10, 2026, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., on the east side of Cherry Creek Shopping Center near Macy's. It is the market most people picture when they think "Denver farmers market," with chef demonstrations, live music, and free parking during hours. It is also, by closing date, the first major market off the board for the season.
That matters because Cherry Creek is where a lot of casual, first-time market visitors go by default. If your Saturday routine has been "swing by Cherry Creek after the gym," you have fewer of those Saturdays left than the other markets in this piece would suggest. Everything else on this list stays open at least two weeks longer, and some run a full month past it.
The Actual Closing Order
Here is how the season actually winds down across the metro, based on each market's own published 2026 schedule:
| Market | Location | Day | Last Day, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cherry Creek Fresh Market | Cherry Creek Shopping Center, east side | Saturdays | Oct. 10 |
| People + Produce | Belleview Station, 6785 E. Chenango Ave. | Sundays | Second week of October |
| Highlands Farmers Market | W. 32nd Ave. and Lowell Blvd. | Sundays | Oct. 25 |
| City Park Farmers Market | City Park Esplanade, E. Colfax Ave. | Saturdays | Oct. 31 |
| Southwest Plaza Farmers Market | Wadsworth Blvd. and W. Bowles Ave., Littleton | Saturdays | Oct. 31 |
| Harvey Park Farmers Market | Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy | Saturdays | Oct. 31 |
| South Pearl Street Farmers Market | S. Pearl St., between Florida and Iowa | Sundays | Nov. 8 |
Read across that table and a pattern shows up that the "farmers markets end in October" assumption completely misses: three markets in three different parts of the metro, City Park to the northeast, Southwest Plaza in Littleton, and Harvey Park in southwest Denver, all close on the exact same day. Whatever quadrant of the metro you live in, there is a market open through Halloween weekend within reach.
Why Halloween Weekend Is the Real Deadline for Most of the Metro
If you live near City Park, Congress Park, or Park Hill, your local option runs Saturday mornings on the Esplanade through October 31. If you're in the southwest corridor near Littleton, Southwest Plaza's Saturday market at Wadsworth and Bowles carries through the same weekend. And Harvey Park's market, based at Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy, closes on that identical date. None of these three make the "biggest market in Denver" conversation the way Cherry Creek does, but between them they cover a wide stretch of the city and all give you three weeks longer than Cherry Creek's own regulars get.
Highlands Farmers Market splits the difference. Running Sundays at 32nd and Lowell in Highland Square, it closes October 25, six days ahead of the Halloween-weekend cluster and two weeks past Cherry Creek. If your neighborhood routine is built around Highland Square on Sundays, you have one more Sunday than you might think, but not the extra two weeks that City Park or Southwest Plaza shoppers get.
The Market Still Running Into November
South Pearl Street Farmers Market is the actual outlier, and it runs in the opposite direction from Cherry Creek. Where the metro's biggest market closes first, this one, based on the 1400 and 1500 blocks of Old South Pearl Street in Platt Park, closes last, running Sundays through November 8. That gives Platt Park and Wash Park area residents nearly a full month of market Sundays after Cherry Creek regulars have already put their totes away for the year.
The market backs up its late close with real scale. It draws more than 170 vendors along the street each week, folding grocery runs into a walk past open restaurants and shops rather than a standalone parking-lot event. A few names worth knowing if you have not made it out yet this season:
- Mile High Fungi, for mushrooms and fungi-based products
- Radical Sasquatch Dumpling Co, for prepared food
- 5 Star Matcha, for a coffee alternative on the walk
If you're planning to bring your dog along on a Sunday market run, South Pearl Street does not allow dogs, so it pays to know that before you've already parked and leashed up at Florida and South Pearl.
Building Your Last Six Weekends of the Season
With the closing order laid out, the practical question is how to actually use the back half of the season instead of losing track of it. Here is the sequence, in order, from today through the final close:
- Now through October 10: Last call at Cherry Creek Fresh Market. If Cherry Creek has been your default, treat every remaining Saturday through October 10 as one you don't get back this year.
- Around October 11: People + Produce at Belleview Station wraps its Sunday run in the DTC area, a smaller, dog-friendly market with a heavier focus on affordable produce than the bigger downtown options.
- October 25: Highlands Farmers Market closes out its Sunday season at 32nd and Lowell.
- October 31: The three-way close. City Park, Southwest Plaza, and Harvey Park all wrap on the same Saturday, regardless of which side of the metro you're shopping.
- November 8: South Pearl Street Farmers Market is the last one standing, closing out nearly a month after Cherry Creek and giving Platt Park a longer produce season than almost anywhere else in Denver.
Treat that list as a countdown rather than a single fall deadline, and the back half of the season looks different. You are not choosing between "farmers markets" and "no farmers markets" once the leaves turn. You are choosing which specific Saturday or Sunday, in which specific part of the metro, is your actual last one.
Knowing a neighborhood at this level, which market survives past Halloween and which one folds up in early October, is the same kind of detail that matters once you're looking at a house and trying to picture an actual weekend routine there. If you're weighing a move within the Denver metro and want someone who already knows which Sunday market is still running in November, John Baldree is a good place to start that conversation. Let's Connect.
