Pasadena's Fall Calendar Peaks Early and Ends With Car-Free Streets

Four of Pasadena's biggest fall events fall between this Friday evening and Sunday. ArtNight runs Oct. 9, Explore JPL runs Oct. 10–11, and the Rose Bowl Flea Market and the first day of Pasadena Heritage's Craftsman Week both land on Oct. 11. After that the calendar spreads out into neighborhood events. The season's largest closing event comes on Nov. 15 with CicLAvia, which the City of Pasadena describes as returning "after more than a decade."

So most of the autumn's big events happen in its first week, and the most unusual one comes last. On that day, portions of Raymond Street and Colorado Boulevard close to cars and stay open to anyone on foot, skates or a bike.

One October Weekend Carries the Season

ArtNight is the easiest of these events to join. The city's Cultural Affairs Division produces it with local arts organizations, and the partner venues offer free entry and programming in visual arts, literary arts, dance, music and theater. Free shuttles run between the venues, and accessible buses are available. The City Hall hub has Bob Baker Marionettes and Theatre Americana, along with music and seasonal art activities.

Explore JPL takes the most planning. The lab is marking 90 years and opening its doors to the public again. Registered guests can visit the Space Flight Operations Facility, a National Historic Landmark where engineers send commands to spacecraft and receive their data. They can also see the Spacecraft Assembly Facility, the JPL Machine Shop and the Microdevices Laboratory, plus full-scale models of the Mars Perseverance rover, Voyager and Galileo. Admission is free, but JPL says timed-entry tickets are "extremely limited." Canceled tickets sometimes reappear on the event's Eventbrite page. Everyone 18 and older must bring a valid government-issued ID, either a REAL ID or a passport, and the name has to match the ticket.

The flea market is on Sunday, the second day of JPL's open house. The monthly market advertises more than 2,500 vendors selling antiques, vintage clothing, art and specialty goods. It returns Nov. 8 for anyone who would rather spread the weekend out.

Craftsman Week also opens Sunday and runs for eight days, so it lasts well beyond the busy weekend. Pasadena Heritage's lineup offers rare access to the Duncan-Irwin House and the Blacker House, behind-the-scenes visits to Judson Studios, historic neighborhood walks and evening events. The Gamble House is hosting a week of partner events during the same window. Tickets are sold by program, and one Blacker House tour is already marked sold out. That makes the program the only item on this calendar that is already partly sold out.

Late October Moves to Neighborhood Venues

After the opening weekend, events get smaller and move to community centers and local business districts.

The City of Pasadena's Parks, Recreation and Community Services department hosts Día de los Muertos at the Villa-Parke Community Center, 363 E. Villa St., on Friday, Oct. 30, from 5 to 8 p.m. The program includes dance, arts and crafts and ofrendas, and food will be available for purchase. An older city release lists a Nov. 1 date. The current 2026 event page says Oct. 30.

The next evening, Saturday, Oct. 31, the Old Pasadena Management District hosts Old Pasadena Halloween from 4 to 8 p.m. along Colorado Boulevard and nearby streets. Children in costume can trick-or-treat at participating businesses while supplies last. One of the newer storefronts in the area is Tierra Caliente at 115 E. Colorado Blvd. The Mexican restaurant soft-opened July 24 and sometimes has live mariachi.

Several gardens and museums just outside the city limits have dated fall programs too:

• Carved at Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive in La Cañada Flintridge, runs through Nov. 1. Nonmember adult tickets cost $29 to $52. The labyrinth has new sculptures by Alexander Reichstein, his first U.S. exhibition.
• Día de los Muertos at the Arboretum in Arcadia is Sunday, Oct. 25, from 4 to 8 p.m. It is the Arboretum's first celebration of the holiday, with a community altar, music, Latin-owned makers and children's crafts. Nonmember adult tickets are $18.
• Strange Science at The Huntington in San Marino is Oct. 30–31, 6 to 10 p.m. It is open to guests 21 and over, with general admission at $90. The 10th-anniversary edition includes Tesla-coil displays synchronized to music.
• Doyle Lane: Master of Clay is at The Huntington through March 1, 2027. The retrospective gathers more than 100 works and includes Lane's 4,876-tile Mutual Savings and Loan mural.

November Starts Indoors and Ends Outside

The Pasadena Playhouse at 39 S. El Molino Ave. runs Passing Strange from Nov. 4 to Nov. 29, with tickets starting at $40. The Tony-winning rock musical follows a young South Central L.A. artist on a coming-of-age trip across continents. The flea market's Nov. 8 date falls in its first week.

CicLAvia comes on Sunday, Nov. 15, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Portions of Raymond Street and Colorado Boulevard will be closed to cars and open for walking, skating, biking and play. The event is free, and in the city's words, "There's no starting point or finish line." The route has two hubs. The Memorial Park Hub is at 145 N. Raymond Ave., and the Colorado Hub is at 1778 E. Colorado Blvd.

The October events ask you to get a ticket, make the trip or plan around a crowd. CicLAvia only requires walking out onto a street that is usually full of traffic.

The Colorado Hub Sits on a Changing Block

The eastern hub at 1778 E. Colorado is a few doors from 1770 E. Colorado Blvd. Until this summer, that address was Lucky Baldwins Trappiste. The pub spent 15 years near Pasadena City College and closed to the public on Aug. 1. Owner Peggy Simonian announced the closure and said the business had "felt very much part of the community here in East Pasadena." The original Lucky Baldwins in Old Town and Lucky Baldwins Delirium in Sierra Madre are both still open.

The Trappiste site is part of a proposed mixed-use project at 1756–1776 E. Colorado Blvd. Filings and media coverage call it "Colorado Crest." According to Pasadena Now's account of city documents, it would be a seven-story building with about 90 units and roughly 1,900 to 2,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space on Colorado. It would replace four existing one-story commercial buildings. As of spring 2026, the Design Commission was scheduled to hold a special meeting to vote on design review for the site. So people at the Colorado Hub on Nov. 15 will be standing next to a block in the middle of the city's review process.

Farther west on the same boulevard, The Daily Catch opened at 927 E. Colorado Blvd. with a July 16 ribbon cutting. The city calls it the Boston-based company's first West Coast location, and the Sicilian-style restaurant brings in New England seafood several times a week.

Where to Eat and Get Coffee Between Stops

An Aug. 17 Pasadena Now report on the city's Economic Development Update listed seven food and drink businesses that had opened recently, five of them since July. Besides Tierra Caliente and The Daily Catch, they are:

1. Milk Brew, 263 E. Colorado Blvd., which steeps its coffee in milk overnight and makes drinks with corn milk and banana milk. It held its grand opening Aug. 1–2.
2. Mammoth Coffee Roasting Co., 183 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Suite 40, the Mammoth Lakes roaster's first Pasadena franchise. It opened July 20.
3. Levant Mediterranean, 117 W. California Blvd. in the Orangewood Center, serving shawarma, falafel and stone-fired dishes. It opened July 8.
4. Dalah, 851 Cordova St., a contemporary Thai restaurant serving curries, noodles and mango sticky rice.
5. Mehfil Co., 82 S. Lake Ave., which the city calls Pasadena's newest chai shop.

One week after CicLAvia, the Doo Dah Parade is set for Sunday, Nov. 22, with an 11 a.m. kickoff. The organizers say the route is still waiting on permits.

Some of us at Isabelle Mizrahi and Coleman Eisner will be signing up for Craftsman Week's house tours ourselves. If you'd like to talk about how Pasadena's Arts and Crafts homes are holding their value this season, book an appointment and we'll walk you through it.