San Rafael's Fall Calendar Starts on Fourth Street and Finishes in the Canal

Through October and November, storefront Día de los Muertos altars line downtown San Rafael while the same street gets ready for a costume contest and a beer-and-wine stroll. The city is running two seasons at once this fall. One is the closing run of Fourth Street's warm-weather events. The other builds toward Saturday, November 7, when the Día de los Muertos celebration fills the Albert J. Boro Community Center at 50 Canal Street from 3 to 9 p.m. and a walking procession heads into the Canal neighborhood at 6.

Fourth Street's October weekends make up the first half of that calendar, and the second half takes place elsewhere. If you follow it in order, you end up at Pickleweed Park.

Three weekends left on Fourth Street

Downtown's outdoor season ends in a cluster. Each event is one notch smaller than the one before.

Friday, October 16. This is the last West End Fridays Block Party of 2026. Pint Size Lounge produces and sponsors the series, which takes over the stretch from F to G streets from 6 to 9 p.m. October 16 is the eighth and final date in a run that started August 21. The listing says buses detour from 5 to 11 p.m. that night, which matters if your evening depends on a route through the West End.

Saturday, October 17. The 6th annual Downtown San Rafael Hops & Vines Stroll runs from 2 to 6 p.m. Guests 21 and over sample beer, wine, spirits, and cider inside participating shops along Fourth Street. Advance tickets are $35, day-of tickets are $45, and a ten-ticket group pack is $250, which works out to $25 a person. The ticket booth is at City Plaza at Court Street, 1000 Fourth Street, and the last tickets sell at 5:30 p.m. Each ticket comes with a glass and a map, and a cable car shuttle runs up and down Fourth. The street stays open to traffic. Organizers say some stops may have snacks but suggest eating at a local restaurant afterward.

Saturday, October 24. Trick-or-Treat on Fourth Street runs from 1 to 3 p.m., with a pet-costume contest in the Plaza and a police-car Trunk-or-Treat. As of this writing, the 2026 page doesn't list the participating businesses yet.

The block party ends at night, the stroll ends at dusk, and the trick-or-treat ends mid-afternoon. By late October, downtown's public calendar has moved to daytime hours. After that, the next big free gathering on the city's calendar is in the Canal.

Where to eat on the West End

If the West End Friday crowd or the Hops & Vines advice sends you looking for food, the newest option is on the corner at 1574 Fourth Street. Chef Alexander Alioto ran The Kitchen Table there for about seven years and closed it in June. After a month of reworking the kitchen and layout, he reopened the space in August as Alioto's Focacceria, a fast-casual Italian deli, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

The IJ reports that the focaccia sandwiches are built on loaves from Poesia Cafe in San Francisco. Fillings include pistachio mortadella with stracciatella and sun-dried tomato, and porchetta with pork pâté and spicy pickled artichokes. The menu also has four pinsas, a caprese made with Full Belly Farm cherry tomatoes and Di Stefano burrata, and a refrigerator case of house-made pasta, pesto, marinara, and meat ragù to take home. Alioto's father, master sommelier Nunzio Alioto, chose the roughly 30 wines.

The order counter is under a 20-foot mural from the family's Fisherman's Wharf restaurant. Alioto told the IJ it had been in his parents' attic and called it "a cool piece of history." The room seats 22 at wood-topped tables. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, so it works for lunch before the October 17 stroll but closes at 6 p.m., the hour the October 16 block party starts.

The windows that point east

During those same October weekends, downtown also has a second, quieter calendar. The Downtown San Rafael Business Improvement District is showing free storefront altar displays through October and November. The district describes them as a reminder of the traditional community celebration at the Albert J. Boro Community Center on November 7. The district's altar map is still marked "coming soon," and the organizers' altar page says 2026 downtown locations will be announced. Until the map comes out, finding them means walking Fourth Street and looking in the windows.

Fourth Street also has a new way to read its own history. In September, the City of San Rafael and the Marin History Museum launched a self-guided historic walking tour of more than 20 downtown locations, available in English and Spanish. It runs on the STQRY app, which brings up historic photos and stories when you scan a QR code or simply stand nearby. Stops range from former car dealerships and banks to sites that have changed completely. The tour is at cityofsanrafael.stqry.app, and the Marin Independent Journal covered the launch.

Indoors, the Ceramic Art Center of Marin has a 37-artist ceramics exhibition inspired by coast, sea, and sky. It runs across two galleries, the center's own Gallery & Boutique on Fourth Street and the Art Works Downtown Founders' Gallery, through November 13. The closing reception, from 5 to 8 p.m., falls on the same night as the next monthly Art Walk. The Art Walk page also describes a new self-guided walk past five finished public-art pieces on downtown utility boxes.

For evenings indoors, the Smith Rafael Film Center lists screening-and-conversation events across the same weeks:

November 7 at Pickleweed Park

The celebration that the downtown altars point to has deep roots in the Canal. Back in 2018, when the event marked its 30th year, the Marin Independent Journal named Multicultural Center of Marin as lead sponsor, with then-executive director Douglas Mundo as event chair. In that article, San Rafael recreation supervisor Steve Mason said, "this event is part of the Canal community." The City's recap of the 2025 edition credits the City of San Rafael, Multicultural Center of Marin, the Canal community, volunteers, and local organizations working together.

In that same 2018 IJ article, Mundo described the gathering as "not about Halloween" and "more about the celebration of life." That helps explain why the season splits the way it does. The costume contest stays on Fourth Street on October 24. The altars, the marigolds, and the procession belong to a different occasion, and they come two weeks later.

This year's program follows the familiar shape. According to the City's event listing, the afternoon starts at 3 p.m. with family art activities, music, face painting for children, food for sale, and altar viewing. At 6 p.m. the walking procession winds through the Canal neighborhood. The evening ends back inside the community center with live music, traditional food, and cultural performances. Admission is free. The City calls this the 38th annual celebration. The organizers haven't yet published a 2026 performer lineup or a street-by-street procession route.

What last year looked like

In its 2025 recap, the City counted 25 altars decorated with marigolds, candles, papel picado, photographs, and mementos. Last year's program included sugar-skull painting, kite-making, food vendors, Aztec drummers, folklórico dancers, and musicians. The evening procession carried large catrina and catrín figures, candles, and butterfly decorations through the neighborhood.

If you want to build an altar

The organizers invite community altars inside the event center. Space is reserved through an application on the Día de los Muertos San Rafael altar page. Suggested dedications include loved ones, heroes, and social-justice or current events. The guidelines lay out a tight schedule:

• Setup: Saturday, November 7, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with altars finished by 2 p.m.
• Teardown: Monday, November 9, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Suggested items: photos, marigolds, food, water, candles, and personal mementos.
• Not allowed: candy, handouts, Halloween items, and valuable or irreplaceable objects.

The ban on Halloween items makes the same point Mundo made eight years ago. The two occasions sit close together on the calendar, but the organizers keep them separate.

After the procession

The community altars come down on November 9. Four days later, on November 13, the ceramics show closes and the Art Walk runs. Fourth Street's next large free gathering is the City's 45th-anniversary Winter Wonderland on Saturday, December 5, from 1 to 6 p.m.

Marks Realty Group is based in San Rafael, and weekends like these are often how we come to know a place: a sandwich on the West End, a window altar on Fourth, a candlelit walk through the Canal. If you'd like to talk about how San Rafael's seasons fit the life you're building here, we'd be glad to listen. Book an Appointment whenever the timing feels right.