If you live off Highway 9, you already know the shape of downtown: the bend at Graham Hill Road, the shuttered Rite Aid that went dark last August, the covered bridge, the market tents on Tuesday afternoons. What has shifted in the last few months is the density of reasons to stay in town on any given weekend. Three of the venues that anchor daily life here are running new programming this year, and one of them is a brand-new store in a building most residents assumed would sit empty through 2026.
Here is where that leaves you between now and October.
The Rite Aid Corner Is Becoming an Ace
The most-watched storefront in town has an occupant. The Scarborough family, which runs a fourth-generation hardware operation with stores from the San Lorenzo Valley to Carmel, Lake Tahoe, and Fort Jones, is turning the former Rite Aid at 6123 Highway 9 into a new Ace Hardware. Morgan Scarborough told the Press Banner that Felton was the only town in the valley where the family did not yet have a presence, and that the timing lined up with the building going vacant. Soft opening is targeted for late February or early March, with the grand opening planned for May and a community event in the parking lot to mark it. The store will employ roughly twenty people, with several current Scarborough employees who live in south Felton already asking to transfer.
The obvious question in a town this small is what happens to Felton True Value Paint & Hardware. Scarborough addressed it directly, calling Don's store a good one and saying certain product lines carried at other family locations will be intentionally excluded from the Felton store to avoid overlap. Whether that plays out cleanly on the aisles is something residents will see for themselves once shelves are stocked, but the stated intent is coexistence rather than replacement.
The lot itself is worth paying attention to. It is meaningfully larger than the family's other store footprints, which Scarborough said opens the door to barbecue demos, garden events, and vendor showcases. That is a use case downtown Felton has not really had since Rite Aid was a drop-in spot for Thrifty ice cream after Little League. A parking lot programmed with weekend events changes the pedestrian pattern on that stretch of Highway 9 in a way an empty building could not.
The Farmers' Market Is Back at St. John's
The Felton Farmers' Market opened its 2026 season on May 5 and runs every Tuesday from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. through October in the St. John's Church parking lot on Highway 9. The market is now in its 39th year. It is the second-oldest farmers' market in Santa Cruz County, and the Santa Cruz Community Farmers' Market nonprofit has been operating it since 2009.
The vendor list is the reason to actually go rather than default to New Leaf on the way home from work. A short version of who to look for:
- Casalegno Farms — a centennial family operation bringing heritage garlic, tender fresh beans, heirloom tomatoes, and early pears
- Triple Delight — blueberries in late spring and early summer
- Penny Ice Creamery, Roli Roti rotisserie chicken, Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery, and Santa Cruz Cider for prepared food and drink
- Mountain Feed and Farm Supply, which runs periodic DIY workshops in the market footprint
Opening day featured a strawberry shortcake giveaway and a workshop led by Jessica Yarr of The Grove. FoodShed Project events, including seasonal themed afternoons, run throughout the season.
One piece of local knowledge worth carrying: the market has a formal high-heat cancellation policy. If forecasts hit 95°F or the National Weather Service issues a heat advisory or excessive heat warning, the Tuesday market is called off. That policy applies to Felton specifically and not the other four SCCFM markets, which is a small tell about how the inland side of the valley sits with regard to summer heat compared to the coast. If it is a scorcher, check the market's channels before you drive down.
Felton Music Hall Is Booking Above Its Weight
A venue with a Highway 9 address is pulling touring acts that would normally slot into San Francisco or a mid-size college-town room. The 2026 summer calendar is a fair sample:
| Date | Act | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| May 2 | Karla Bonoff | Singer-songwriter whose compositions have been recorded by Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, and Wynonna Judd |
| July 12 | Nick Lutsko | Chattanooga-based songwriter and producer, work for Netflix, HBO, and Comedy Central |
| July 14 | Nation of Language, with Peel Dream Magazine | NYC new wave and post-punk trio, Late Show with Stephen Colbert debut on their second LP |
Shows are 21+, standing room, with a limited number of chairs at the back on a first-come basis. Doors at 7, show at 8, bar and food open at 5. If you have been treating Music Hall as a place you stop into on a whim, the summer calendar rewards planning ahead. Nation of Language in a room that size in mid-July is the kind of booking that sells out before the day-of.
Roaring Camp's Calendar Is Doing More Than the Train
Most residents mentally file Roaring Camp under "what we send visiting family to." The 2026 event slate makes a stronger case for locals showing up on their own.
The Redwood Mountain Faire returns May 30 and 31, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., with a lineup that includes AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Melvin Seals & Matt Hartle with the Hartle Gold Band, Tommy Castro & the Painkillers, Scott Law & Friends, Jive Machine, The Inciters, James Durbin, and the Brookdale Bluegrass Band. Proceeds go to local San Lorenzo Valley non-profits.
Two months earlier, on Saturday, March 7, Bret Harte Hall at Roaring Camp hosts the second Winter Warmer Festival from 2 to 8 p.m. Tickets are $60 general admission and free for kids under 13. The lineup features Grahame Lesh, Elliot Peck, Natalie Cressman, the Alex Lucero Band, and the Hot Buttered Duo, with art vendors, a coffee bar, local craft beer and wine, food artisans, free ten-minute massages, and supervised kids' activities.
For families with young children, Day Out With Thomas continues its annual run, and the beach train still departs Graham Hill Road for the Boardwalk through Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, across the 1909 steel truss bridge, and through the 1875 tunnel. That combination of routine train service and destination festival programming means the property is more of a full-year civic asset than most residents treat it as.
The Through-Line
The thing worth naming is that downtown Felton and Graham Hill Road are quietly getting denser at the same time. A hardware store with a working events lot fills a hole where a drugstore used to sit. A market at St. John's has now outlasted several corporate retailers a mile in either direction. A 250-seat music room is booking bands that Bay Area venues bid on. And a heritage railroad is running two festival weekends before Memorial Day.
For a longtime resident, that is a nudge to change the default. Instead of driving to Scotts Valley or over the hill for a Saturday, look at what is on the Music Hall calendar and what workshop the market has queued up on Tuesday. When the Ace opens in earnest this spring, that corner of Highway 9 becomes a real destination again for the first time since August.
If you have been thinking about what your home is worth against this backdrop, or you are curious what a house two blocks off downtown actually trades for in this cycle, we live and work here and are always happy to talk through it. Contact Us at EF Homes when the time is right.