For years, if you lived in Hummelstown you organized your summer around Saturdays. The Criterium closed Main Street in June, the Arts Festival owned a weekend in the square, and the rest was a rotation of backyard grills and Hershey traffic on Route 322.
Look at the 2026 calendar and something has quietly shifted. The best programming in town now happens Thursday and Friday. The farmers market has a music layer it did not have five years ago, Second Friday is a real event instead of a poster in a window, and the newest tenant to sign a Dauphin County lease is built entirely around off-hours access. If you already live here, the practical move for August and September is to stop planning weekends and start planning weeknights.
The Thursday That Does More Than It Used To
The Farmers Market in Hershey sits inside the borough's mailing address, at 1215 Research Blvd on the grounds of the Cocoa Beanery, off Bullfrog Valley Rd, open Thursday afternoons from May through October, 2:30-6:30 pm. That is the same slot it has held for years. What changed is the layer on top of it.
Third Thursdays of the summer months now bring the Farmhouse Summer Porch Music Series from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, which stretches the market past its usual close and turns a produce run into an evening. The market itself flags National Farmers Market Week August 2 – 8, 2026, which will fall on the first Thursday of August this year, so the third-Thursday music night lands on August 20. Two Thursdays, two different reasons to walk over instead of drive through.
Second Friday Is Actually A Thing Now
The state has been paying attention. When Governor Shapiro visited town to pitch the Main Street Matters program, he stopped at Toys on the Square, What Momma Makes, and The 1762 Kitchen and Cocktails at the Warwick Hotel, and the borough's mayor described the Second Friday series specifically as the visible face of the town's revitalization.
In practice, Second Friday runs 6 to 8 pm downtown, with shops staying open, restaurants seating extra covers, and live music on the sidewalk. The organizers frame the September edition around Lucy Trout performing and the phrase "Eat, Shop & Stroll." If you live within walking distance of the fountain, the calculation is straightforward: it is one of two evenings a month when Main Street feels like a small city rather than a pass-through corridor between Hershey and Harrisburg.
The New Lease Everyone Is Going To Notice
The most concrete change to the Hummelstown mailing address this summer is not a restaurant, it is a golf bay. A premier indoor golf destination offering 24/7 access is expanding into Dauphin County, and the indoor golf franchise called Back Nine Golf has just signed a lease for a new location at the Hershey Square shopping center at 1130 Mae Street.
Two details matter for residents. First, the footprint: the new 3,000-square-foot location will join several other existing businesses such as Weis Markets, Five Guys, Five Below, TJ Maxx, which means it slots into a shopping center most locals are already circling weekly. Second, the hours model: the location is described as a premier indoor golf destination offering 24/7 access to cutting-edge indoor golf simulator bays, with membership and drop-in options. An after-work bay at 7 pm on a Tuesday is a genuinely new option here.
No opening date has been announced yet. The Bennett Williams commercial listing and the franchise's own site both flag it as coming soon.
Where To Actually Go, By How Far You Have To Walk
If a friend from out of town texts you in the middle of a Second Friday asking where to meet, this is the honest local answer:
Within sight of the fountain
Toys on the Square fills 15 thousand square feet, with a 30-year run in town, and specializes in screen-free toys, board games, books, and stuffed animals, plus games and toys you can try before you buy. Jo-Jo's Pizza has been making pies since 1978 and puts plenty of dining space and outdoor tables near the fountain. Chocolates by Tina Marie sits a short block away on Rosana Street; the shop earned Retail Confectioners International's Confection of the Year in June 2024 with a caramel piece infused with espresso coffee and a hint of cinnamon, topped with espresso salt, which is a national award you probably would not expect from a Rosana Street storefront.
A block off the square
Forrest's Feed Co. is the newer wood-fired BBQ operation tucked at 283 East Main Street rear, open Thursday through Saturday, 11 am to 7 pm. The 1762 anchors the Warwick Hotel on Main, and the Warwick itself keeps a full lunch and dinner schedule Tuesday through Sunday with happy hour Thursdays 4:30 to 8:30 pm. Silver Sea at 9 East Main covers the everyday takeout Chinese slot, and Simply Greek and Soda Jerk Diner & Dairy Bar round out the walkable list of independents.
A short drive, still your ZIP code
The Farmers Market at the Cocoa Beanery, already covered. Indian Echo Caverns, located one-half mile south of the borough limits, is one of the main attractions near Hummelstown; the caverns opened to the public in 1929, and the shortline Middletown and Hummelstown Railroad operates heritage and freight service, stopping in front of the Indian Echo Caverns entrance. If you have never taken family visitors on the train to the caverns and back, it is the single most Hummelstown-specific thing you can do in an afternoon.
The August And September Calendar, In One Place
The point of this post is that the good stuff is spread across the week now, not stacked on two Saturdays. Here is what to actually put on your fridge:
- Every Thursday, 2:30–6:30 pm through October: Farmers Market at 1215 Research Blvd.
- Thursday, August 20, 6–8 pm: Farmhouse Summer Porch Music Series overlays the market.
- August 2–8: National Farmers Market Week programming at the same site.
- Second Fridays, 6–8 pm downtown: shops and restaurants open late, live music on Main.
- 44th Annual Hummelstown Arts Festival: 160+ juried artists, live music and free entertainment, food court, and kids' activities, with proceeds funding college scholarships and local art programs.
- Hummelstown Criterium & Street Fair: billed as the largest one-day craft fair, food truck festival and bike race in South-Central Pennsylvania.
- Taste of Hummelstown on Main Street: an afternoon of local restaurants pouring onto the sidewalk.
- Hummelstown Car Show: proceeds benefit the Hummelstown Kid's Summer Rec Program, presented by Hummelstown Parks & Rec and the Area Historical Society.
- Friday, September 19, 8 pm: Movie Night at Schaffner Park, chairs and blankets, a way to wrap up a summer evening under the stars.
Confirm dates on the borough's official calendar before you commit, since a few of the movable events shift a week year to year.
Why This Matters If You Live In A Small Borough
Hummelstown is a small town by any measurement. The borough is already 99 percent developed, with a small open area of approximately 20 acres remaining, which means the next decade of change here will not come from new subdivisions on the edge of town. It will come from reuse of the buildings that already exist and from tenants like Back Nine Golf taking space in existing shopping centers.
That has a practical consequence for daily life. The programming layer on top of Main Street, the third-Thursday music at the farmers market, and the after-hours draws inside Hershey Square end up doing more of the work that new square footage might do somewhere else. If you already own here, paying attention to the weekly calendar is closer to the real story of the town than watching the horizon for cranes.
The Thursday-Friday rhythm is not a marketing angle. It is what actually happened when the borough leaned into public-private events like Second Friday, when the farmers market added a music series, and when a 24/7 tenant chose Hershey Square. The town has quietly rewritten its own week, and for anyone who has been here more than a couple of summers, that is the fun part to notice.
If you have been in your Hummelstown home long enough that the neighborhood has changed around you and you are curious what that means for your equity position, the John Smith Team is happy to walk you through it. Request a Free Home Valuation and we will send back a written estimate grounded in what is actually selling on your block, not a national average.
