Things to Do in White Bear Lake in August This Weekend

By the first week of August, Marketfest has packed up its two stages, Manitou Days has fired off its last shell over the lake, and the sidewalks downtown feel like they belong to residents again. If you have lived here for even one summer, you know the trick to the next few weeks: Marketfest runs Thursday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m. mid-June through the end of July, and Manitou Days closes on the Fourth of July with fireworks over the lake. What replaces them is not silence. It is a different, quieter calendar that most out-of-town guides never bother to write down.

Here is what that calendar actually looks like this month, and where to be on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of an ordinary White Bear Lake weekend.

The Friday Market That Outlasts the Festivals

The Marketfest tents come down, but the city's Farmers' Market keeps going through the fall. The Farmers' Market begins the last Friday in June and ends the last Friday in October, from 8 a.m. to noon, and features more than 50 vendors, many returning as second-generation farmers. It sits on Clark Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Street, which puts it a short walk from anywhere downtown.

August is when the character of the tables changes. Early-summer bedding plants and greens give way to what is actually ripening: honey, maple syrup, jams and jellies, wild rice, natural cheeses and meats, farm-fresh eggs, fruits and vegetables, fresh salmon, baked goods, wildflowers, and micro greens, with pumpkins and squash pushing in by the end of the month. The city has confirmed Farmers' Market dates for Friday, August 7 and Friday, August 14, both 8 a.m. to noon, and the pattern holds through the rest of the month.

A useful thing to know if you are new: the two markets are not competing. Marketfest was a Thursday-evening street party with music and 200-plus booths. The Friday market is a working produce market with a fraction of the crowd and a real chance of getting home before your coffee is cold.

Sunday at Six on Little Goose Lake

For the rest of summer, the free show most residents forget to mention to visitors is a ski show. On Sunday, August 2, 2026, 6 to 7:30 p.m., Little Goose Lake at the intersection of Highway 61 and County Road hosts a free water ski show, and the Midwest Ski Otters keep the Sunday-night pattern going through the warm weeks that remain. A folding chair on the grass, a takeout order from downtown, and a boat with skiers doing pyramid formations. It is one of the more purely local things this town does.

The Rest of the Month, in One Place

If you want to skim the calendar for a night out that is not the market or the ski show, these are the anchor dates:

Newsies at the high school is worth flagging because it draws a broader audience than the usual school-theater crowd. Pops on the Porch at the Fillebrown House is the opposite kind of evening: chamber-adjacent music on the lawn of a lakeside cottage most people drive past without ever going inside. The flea at Big Wood is a good excuse to wander into the brewery afterward if you have not been in a while.

A Newer Name to Know

If your default White Bear dinner rotation has not changed in three years, there is a new option worth trying. Brothers Logan Neal and Connor Podewils, along with their stepfather and father Ryan Podewils and mother Nicole Podewils, opened Bear Dogs at 1595 County Road E East. The concept is straightforward and self-aware: hot dogs, beer, local sports on the wall. The walls are painted black and orange to play off a sports-hangout vibe, and customers are greeted by a bear on the wall along with some jerseys.

The family already runs deep in the local business fabric. Ryan opened Pods Tires and Wheels in 1995 with his father, Dick, and Logan's father Todd Neal opened Nacho Mamas in Stillwater in 2005. Connor's read on the room, from an interview earlier this year: "There are not too many places in White Bear where you can go sit down, have a beer, have a hot dog and watch local games. That's the kind of vibe we are going for."

The interesting thing about Bear Dogs is not the menu. It is that a place opened specifically to serve the crowd walking out of a WBLAHS or youth lacrosse game. That is a business betting on the town's actual weekly rhythm.

The Two Anchors That Do Not Need a Date

Some places are worth naming because they hold up in August specifically, when the patios earn their rent. Acqua Restaurant & Bar sits along the western shore of White Bear Lake with creative Italian cuisine and lake views; it was opened in 2009 by Daron and Nicole Close. The restaurant features two dining rooms, a sheltered deck overlooking the marina, a spacious lakeside patio, and a bar. If you want the patio without a reservation on a summer Saturday, plan on being there early.

Up on Highway 61, Rudy's Redeye Grill at 4940 Highway 61 N specializes in hand-cut steaks, pan-fried walleye, and handcrafted cocktails, and the Rooftop Bar offers summer dining with sweeping views. It is the town's default answer to "somewhere with a view that isn't the lakefront."

For downtown, Washington Square Bar & Grill is still the reliable weeknight room. Full-service bar and grill with outdoor patio, private events, craft beer, and live music.

Watching for the Apple Window

The August-to-September pivot in this town has one clear signal, and it is not the school calendar. It is Pine Tree Apple Orchard. Their own instruction to visitors right now: please check back after August 15 for an apple harvest update. That is the moment when the Friday market's tables reorient toward fall, when the orchard opens up its lakeside overlook, its baked goods, and its walks among the trees, about 10 miles north of downtown St. Paul, and when a savvy local knows to go during the week, because it becomes really busy on beautiful fall weekends.

If you have out-of-town family visiting after Labor Day, a Tuesday morning at Pine Tree with a stop at the Friday market on the way home is the answer to "what should we do." Do not wait until October to remember that.

A Preview of the Cold-Weather Version

One more thing worth putting on the calendar now, because it always sneaks up. The Friday market wraps at the end of October, and the Winter Farmers Market picks up the thread. The second seasonal installment of the White Bear Lake Winter Farmers Market is scheduled for Saturday, December 13, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at White Bear Lake Area High School's west entrance, 5040 Bald Eagle Avenue, with dozens of food vendors featured in the natural light of the expansive student union. The lineup that has anchored past winter markets includes KCM Eggrolls, Sasquatch Sandwiches, Brick Oven Pizza Bus, and the Edge Mobile Sharpening Truck, with Pine Tree Apple Orchard donating hot apple cider poured by volunteers from the White Bear Food Shelf. Set a phone reminder for early December now, and you will thank yourself later.

What August Actually Tells You About This Town

Read the month as a whole and a pattern shows up. The events that define White Bear Lake in July are the loud, out-of-town-friendly ones. The events that define it in August are the ones that a family living here builds a weekend around: a produce market on a walkable downtown street, a free ski show on a Sunday evening, a chamber concert on the lawn of a historic cottage, a hot dog place opened by people who went to the local high school. That is a useful thing to notice if you are new here and trying to figure out what your neighbors actually do, and it is a useful thing to remember if you have been here long enough that August has started to feel like an afterthought.

It is not an afterthought. It is the version of the town you moved here for.

If you love how this neighborhood feels in late summer and are curious what it means for the housing market on your block, Arbor Residential Group can walk you through it. Get your instant home valuation or talk to Julie about your neighborhood.