Lake Bluff's First October Without the Brewery: The Month on the Village Green, Date by Date
October 8, 2026
October 8, 2026
The last day at 16 East Scranton Avenue was a party. Lake Bluff Brewing Company held its annual Oktoberfest Block Party on September 12, and that was its final day open downtown. The brewery opened there in March 2011. Its 15-year lease ran out earlier this year, and the landlord rented the space to another tenant.
Owners Mike and Megan Dorneker are looking for a new space in Lake Bluff. As of the Lake Forest Journal's October 1 report, they hadn't announced a new location or a reopening timeline. No report so far has named the new tenant either. The Lake Bluff Public Library called the brewery a community partner of 15 years. That kind of partner is hard to replace in a downtown this compact.
This October, the Green's gatherings will run almost entirely through public and volunteer groups: the Park District, the Library, the Lake Bluff History Museum, the PTO and the Village. Their calendars are precise. Most of the month comes in short bursts, and missing one Friday or Sunday means missing that event for the year.
The first burst lands this coming weekend, back to back.
Friday, October 9. The last Lake Bluff Farmers Market of 2026 runs 7 a.m. to noon on the Village Green, near Scranton Avenue and Sheridan Road. This season ran Fridays from June 5. After the 9th, the Green has no regular Friday-morning market until next summer.
Saturday, October 10. The Lake Bluff Park District Fireworks Celebration was planned for Saturday, September 19. With a 90 percent chance of heavy rain in the forecast, the Park District moved it to October 10. Festivities start at 3 p.m. and live music at 4 p.m., and the fireworks go up at 6:30 p.m. The event is at the Lake Bluff Recreation Center, 355 W. Washington Ave., with food on site. A mid-September show became an October one, and the earlier sunset puts the fireworks at 6:30 p.m., early enough for families with young children.
Sunday, October 11. The History Museum's afternoon program is "Under the Grand Tabernacle: the Lake Bluff Camp Meeting/Chautauqua and the Rise of a Village." It runs 2 to 3 p.m. at Union Church of Lake Bluff.
Put together, Lake Bluff's market season ends Friday, its biggest outdoor evening comes Saturday, and Sunday's talk covers the camp meeting and Chautauqua years that helped shape the village.
The Museum's October schedule goes deeper than most town history series, and it uses rooms all over the village.
On Thursday, October 22, the Lake Bluff History Museum and the Lake Bluff 250 Committee present "The Promise of Liberty" at Lake Forest High School. The 7 p.m. public program is free, but you need a reservation.
On Sunday, October 25, the Museum's Chautauqua series continues from 2 to 3 p.m. with memories of the Lake Bluff Children's Home. The two sources list different venues. The Museum's schedule says Union Church. The ticket page says Grace United Methodist Church, 244 E. Center Ave. Check your ticket before you head out that afternoon.
The Museum's current events page lists a Ghost Walk among this year's programs but gives no date. The ticket page that comes up for it is from an earlier year and says the event has passed. For now it's a program to watch for, with no date on the calendar yet.
Starting mid-month, the calendar shifts from history to children's events. It's the most crowded two weeks of the fall, and every event runs on a different organization's schedule:
Halloween falls on a Saturday this year. The Library's bag giveaway and the start of village trick-or-treating both begin at 4 p.m., so a family that wants the bags will want to be at the Library right at the start.
Two Friday nights in a row, the 16th and the 23rd, have evening events for families. Saturday the 24th starts early with the 5K, and Sunday the 25th has the history talk. For about ten days, nearly every evening or weekend morning has something scheduled by a Lake Bluff organization.
After Halloween the Library keeps a weekly event going. Its free Grab and Go Crafts offers a new craft every week for ages 0 to 12, with November dates on Fridays the 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th.
Every event above has an end time, and afterward the Green's evenings depend on the businesses still open around it. With 16 E. Scranton dark for now, these are the downtown spots with current first-party hours this fall:
Hansa and Maevery sit a few doors from the former brewery, on the same stretch of Scranton that the brewery's summer block parties used to fill. On market morning, October 9, Hansa opens an hour before the market does.
The Lake Bluff Brewing website still shows taproom hours at 16 E. Scranton. Local reporting since September confirms the taproom has closed, so don't plan a visit off that page. The next real news on that block will be a named tenant at 16 E. Scranton or a new Lake Bluff address for the brewery. Neither has been announced as of October 4.
Our offices have been on downtown Lake Bluff streets for generations, and we keep an eye on what opens and closes around the Village Green. If you'd like to talk about how changes on Scranton Avenue affect your own plans in the village, The GGL Group is happy to help. Schedule a call, and we'll share what we're hearing about the block.