Here is a very Minneapolis idea: take one of the busiest streets in the city, tell the cars to sit this one out, and hand the whole thing over to people on foot, on bikes, and on scooters for a day. That is Open Streets, and after a quiet stretch it is back on the calendar for 2026 — three of them, all in early fall.
If you are visiting and you want a day that feels less like a checklist and more like actually being in the city, this is the thing to do in Minneapolis this September. Here is what is happening and how to plan around it.
The 2026 Open Streets Minneapolis dates and routes
The City of Minneapolis picked three community organizations to co-host this year’s events through a request-for-proposals process. Per the City’s official announcement, the lineup is:
- Saturday, Sept. 12 — Open Streets West Broadway. West Broadway between Logan Avenue and Lyndale Avenue, in north Minneapolis. Hosted by the West Broadway Business & Area Coalition.
- Saturday, Sept. 26 — Nicollet Open Streets. Nicollet Avenue between Lake Street and 46th Street, plus Riverside Avenue between Cedar Avenue and 19th Avenue. Hosted by the Lyndale Neighborhood Association.
- Sunday, Oct. 11 — Open Streets Hennepin Avenue. Hennepin Avenue between West 26th and 36th Streets, through Uptown. Hosted by the Uptown Association.
For scale: in 2025 the city co-hosted four of these and counted roughly 120,000 people across them. These are not small block parties.
Sept. 12: West Broadway, north Minneapolis
The Northside kicks the season off. The West Broadway Business & Area Coalition’s event page describes a free, family-friendly day covering thirteen blocks of the avenue, with more than 250 participants and vendors — food, music, dancing, bikes, the works. The organizers list hours of 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., say the day runs rain or shine, and note that leashed, well-behaved pets are welcome. They also publish a live map with vendor and restroom locations, which is worth pulling up on your phone before you go.
Parking is free and metered on the surrounding neighborhood streets, but the organizers’ own advice is the right advice: come early, or don’t drive at all. Bike racks are set up along the route.
Sept. 26: Nicollet Avenue, aka a two-mile main street
This is the big one for eaters. The Lyndale Neighborhood Association is running it from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, and describes it as “a two-mile celebration of our main street, with pop-up activities, live music, and fresh food and drink.” Nicollet south of Lake Street is one of the best stretches of restaurants in the state on a normal day. Closed to traffic, with the kitchens spilling onto the pavement, it is a genuinely great afternoon.
One nice detail: the organizers are offering a free Metro Transit day pass for Sept. 26 to anyone who fills out a short survey linked from their event page. Take them up on it.
If you want to keep grazing afterward, our list of the best Minneapolis restaurants for atmosphere and the best ice cream and dessert spots will get you through the evening. Morning people, start with the best coffee shops in Minneapolis.
Oct. 11: Hennepin Avenue through Uptown
The finale lands on a Sunday in mid-October, hosted by the Uptown Association along Hennepin between 26th and 36th. That is peak fall color season here, and Uptown sits a few blocks from Lake of the Isles and the rest of the Chain of Lakes — so you can pair a street festival with a walk around the water without moving your car once. Our guide to the best Minneapolis parks covers where to go from there.
How to build a weekend around one
See the city first, then walk it
Open Streets shows you one avenue in great detail. A narrated scenic trolley tour shows you how that avenue fits into everything else — the lakes, the riverfront, the mansion districts, the mills. Doing the tour first and the festival second is the move; you will recognize half of what you walk past. Minneapolis Trolley Tours departs from the Pillsbury Club, the haunted Charles S. Pillsbury Mansion on East 22nd Street, which is itself worth an hour for the speakeasy bar and the mansion tours.
Bring the kids, or don’t
All three events are free and family-friendly — West Broadway even does free face painting under the yellow tents. If you are building a whole weekend for a family, our best Minneapolis family activities list pairs well with any of these dates.
Where to sleep
The Nicollet and Hennepin routes are both an easy hop from Loring Park, which makes 300 Clifton — the 1880s Carpenter Mansion, now a bed and breakfast with a garden hot tub and a speakeasy in the basement — a very convenient base. If you are in town longer, or you are the sort of traveler who wants a kitchen and a full apartment, Oakland’s on 9th does furnished extended stays downtown.
A quick note on September in Minneapolis
Open Streets is not the only thing going. The Minnesota State Fair runs Aug. 27 through Labor Day, Sept. 7, and September is stacked with football, theater, and fall-color weekends — we broke the whole month down in our guide to what to do in Minneapolis in September 2026. And if you are willing to drive an hour, the Minnesota Renaissance Festival is running weekends through Oct. 4. Meet Minneapolis keeps a broader citywide calendar if you want to go deeper.
Routes, vendor maps, and final details get updated by each host organization as the dates get closer, so check their pages the week of. But the dates themselves are locked: Sept. 12, Sept. 26, and Oct. 11.
Make a day of it
Book a narrated scenic tour for the morning, spend the afternoon walking down the middle of a street that normally wants to run you over, and finish with dinner somewhere on the route. That is a very good Saturday. See the full tour schedule and book your seats here — fall dates fill up faster than people expect.