Halloween and Ginkgo Gold Land on the Same Weekend in Clarke County This Year

Jane's Lunch closed earlier in 2026 after more than 80 years on East Main Street in Berryville. Its building now holds a paint studio. Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and that Saturday is also the first day of Blandy Experimental Farm's Ginkgo Gold visitor weekends. The next morning, the last Makers Market of the season opens on West Main Street. In about 24 hours, the two biggest draws in Clarke County's fall calendar overlap, and they share the town's roads and parking.

The corner at 3 East Main Street

The Berryville Main Street directory lists Jane's Lunch as family-owned since 1942. An earlier Winchester Star feature described the diner as a regular meeting place, with groups of men gathering every morning and women meeting on Mondays and Fridays. In its Oct. 1 story, the Winchester Star reported that the diner closed earlier this year.

The new tenant is Easely Created Paint & DIY Studio, owned and run by Melanie Hoffman. It moved from West Boscawen Street in Winchester. Hoffman brought the old studio's tables and metal chairs with her, still flecked with paint. She painted the walls in shades of blue and hung her own paintings on narrow wooden shelves. She told the Star the focus is painting on canvas or wooden planks, along with classes and private art parties for children and adults. She is currently the only employee. She moved the studio after moving to a new home.

The Top of Virginia Regional Chamber held the ribbon-cutting on Oct. 1, and the studio's opening weekend runs through Sunday, Oct. 4. This means the first big crowds of the studio's first month on Main Street will come on Halloween afternoon.

October fills up before the last weekend

The rest of October spreads across the county before the calendar narrows to Berryville and Boyce.

The Clarke County Historical Association's show at the mill ends this weekend. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for seniors, and students get in free. Clermont Farm's fourth annual plant sale offers native plants, local vendors, demonstrations and gardening advice. The Lucketts Fall Market organizers advertise more than 200 vendors at the fairgrounds, plus beer gardens, food trucks, live music and workshops.

Each of these events has its own weekend. The last line of the table is different, because two of the season's biggest draws open on the same Saturday afternoon.

One Saturday, two calendars

Hallow-Main Street is a free family festival at Rose Hill Park with Main Street trick-or-treating, a costume contest and games for kids. Berryville Main Street directs festival parking to the Rixie Moore parking area. On the same Saturday, the Foundation of the State Arboretum opens its first Ginkgo Gold weekend at Blandy. Here is how the day lines up:

1. 10 a.m. Ginkgo Gold visitor services open at Blandy. Vendors near the parking entrance include K Spot Korean Food, The Station Café's coffee trailer, Foster's Candy Kitchen and Shade Metals, along with a Clarke County Tourism table.
2. 2 p.m. Hallow-Main Street starts at Rose Hill Park, and trick-or-treating begins on Main Street.
3. 4 p.m. Blandy's vendor services close. The grounds stay open until dusk.
4. 5 p.m. Hallow-Main Street ends.
5. Sunday, 10 a.m. The November Makers Market opens at Unique Creations Studio, 107 W. Main St., and Blandy's vendors return for the second day.

The Makers Market is a first-Sunday pop-up that runs May through November, so the Nov. 1 market is the last one of the year. Between Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, the 100 block of West Main, the old Jane's corner on East Main and the trick-or-treating route all see more foot traffic than at any other point this fall.

How the grove works on a Gold weekend

Blandy's own FAQ explains why the grove draws this kind of crowd:

"The Ginkgo Grove tends to be busiest on weekends in late October and early November. 'Busy' could mean over a thousand visitors a day!"

The grove has more than 300 trees, and Blandy calls it one of the largest public ginkgo groves in America. On the weekends closest to peak color, the arboretum changes how visitors reach it:

• Entrance. Use the Route 50 entrance and park in the lots near the Quarters building.
• Walk. Tuleyries Lane and the path through the Cedars of Lebanon are closed to cars on those weekends. The walk from the lots takes about 10 minutes.
• Limited mobility. About 20 spaces at the grove are reserved for visitors with limited mobility. To reach them, follow the signs out of the grounds onto Berry's Ferry Road and back in through the back woodlot.
• Buses. Buses are not allowed on the grounds because of sharp turns and low branches. They park in the front field lot.
• Roadsides. Blandy asks visitors not to park along roadsides or in undesignated areas, both to protect the trees and for visitor safety.

The Bank of Clarke Foundation and Crescent Cities Charities are among this year's sponsors. Across from the grove, there will be a souvenir stand and a booth where you can sponsor a ginkgo tree tagged with your name. The Foundation is also looking for dozens of volunteers to help with visitor services over these weekends.

Use the days in between

The visitor-services weekends set when the vendors and extra restrooms are on site. They do not set when the grove is open. Blandy is open to the public every day from dawn to dusk, and its FAQ recommends weekdays or early weekend mornings for a quieter visit. According to the arboretum, peak color usually arrives in late October or early November, and the timing changes from year to year. Blandy posts updates on the grove's color on its Ginkgo Gold page and its social media accounts.

That makes the overlap easy to manage if you live in the county. A weekday walk in the week before Halloween, or a morning visit on Oct. 31 before the vendors open at 10, keeps the grove and Main Street on separate parts of the weekend. On Saturday, you can walk the grove at first light and still be at Rose Hill Park by 2.

The second Gold weekend, Nov. 7–8, has nothing else major scheduled downtown. On Nov. 7, the lineup includes K Spot Korean Food, The Cupcake Mafia and Donut Dive. The lineup posted for the following day appears to be left over from 2025, so check closer to the date before planning around particular vendors.

November goes back to Main Street

After the grove's two weekends, Berryville's November events shift back to its storefronts:

• Nov. 1: Applications open for Parking Meters on Parade, the seventh annual decorating contest with a People's Choice Award. The entry fee is $20.
• Nov. 10–30: Berryville Main Street holds its second annual Holiday Coloring Contest.
• Nov. 25–Dec. 31: The decorated meters stay up on Main Street through the end of the year.
• Nov. 27: Plaid Friday runs as a shopping promotion with downtown Berryville vendors.

Hoffman told the Star she expected to lose some Winchester customers with the move and hoped to gain new ones in Berryville. The studio's first November on East Main includes the season's final Makers Market, a month-long coloring contest and the Friday after Thanksgiving. The building that served diner customers for more than eight decades now hosts art classes and private painting parties.

The ginkgo grove at Blandy and the land around Clermont Farm are part of why the country around Berryville looks the way it does. If you own land in Clarke County and are thinking about how it should be cared for in its next chapter, Debbie Meighan would welcome a quiet conversation. Schedule a confidential consultation to discuss your estate.