Things to Do in Glastonbury CT This August: Local Guide

The line at the Rose's breakfast deck starts forming before 8:30 on a Sunday. Three miles west, a former Coldwater Creek space at the Shops at Somerset Square is being framed out into a 175-seat pizza hall with twelve taps. Both of those things are, in their way, the Glastonbury story right now. August is the month you can see them at the same time.

If you have lived here a while, you already know the beats. What follows is the current-year version: which crops are actually in the ground this week, which Wednesdays are worth planning around, and what the Colony Grill build-out at Somerset Square is really doing to the east end of town.

What's actually ripe on Matson Hill this week

Rose's Berry Farm has been on Matson Hill since 1908, and the calendar there is the closest thing this town has to a farm almanac. The Gondek family took over in 2022 and moved the operation off pesticides and Roundup, which changed the feel of the fields more than the roster of crops.

Here is what the season looks like when you actually break it down by week:

The Sunday Breakfast-With-A-View is running June 14 through October 25, 2026, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. If you have never done it as a resident because you assumed it was a tourist thing, the trick is to go on a weekday morning to pick, then come back for breakfast the Sunday after. You get the fields empty and the deck full.

One quiet piece of local history worth carrying with you: in 2018 the previous owner sold 50 acres of the farm to the Town of Glastonbury for Open Space, and neighboring Belltown Hill Orchards has been farming that back half ever since. When you look across the hill from the Rose's parking lot, you are looking at land the town paid to keep in cultivation. That is not a small thing, and it is why Matson Hill in August still looks the way it does.

Wednesdays belong to Riverfront Park

The Riverfront Music Series is the summer's most reliable free ticket, and the 2026 season leans harder on tribute acts than in years past. Concerts run Wednesday evenings at 6:30 p.m. behind the Riverfront Community Center at 300 Welles Street, co-hosted by the Town of Glastonbury and the CT River Valley Chamber of Commerce, with three headliners in July and Town Band performances rounding out the summer.

A few practical notes that separate a good night at Riverfront from a frustrating one:

• Free parking is available at the Town Hall/Academy campus, with a paved trail through the Dog Park that runs about a half mile to the park. Walking in is faster than driving in after 6:15.
• A shuttle runs from the Dog Park lot at 200 Welles Street and from the Ss. Isidore and Maria Parish lot at 2577 Main Street, which is the move if you are coming from the south end of town.
• Concerts are family and pet-friendly on leash, and it is BYO food and beverages. Chairs beat blankets once the grass gets dewy after 8.
• The July 15 Journey tribute was cancelled on-site because of smoke and air quality, so keep an eye on rescheduled dates that may land in August.

If the weather flips on a Wednesday, check before you drive over. Rain dates are usually the next night, but the July air-quality cancellation this year was a reminder that the "concert or no concert" call is not always about rain.

The stretch between the Boathouse and the RCC has become the town's default warm-evening walk anyway. Concert night just gives you a reason to end it at a folding chair.

One Saturday to circle, and one Sunday if you like pigs

August's non-concert lineup has two things worth planning around.

The first is the Echo Asia Festival on Saturday, August 8, from 11 a.m. at Elks Lodge #2202. Free admission, and the food lineup is the draw. Elks Lodge #2202 is not a venue most residents think of first, which is part of why this festival has stayed a manageable size.

The second is at Hops on the Hill on Wetherell Street, which has quietly become the town's most reliable oddball-event calendar. Piggies & Pilates is on Sunday, August 16, at 12:30 p.m., and it is exactly what it sounds like: a mat class held with pigs from a local sanctuary wandering the taproom lawn. Whether that appeals to you or not tells you something about the direction this stretch of town has been moving.

Between the two, the last two weekends of August have a shape to them. The middle weekend is quieter and usually the right one to pick fruit.

The Somerset Square question

Now the thing everyone at the coffee counter is asking about.

Colony Grill has confirmed a Glastonbury location at 130 Glastonbury Boulevard in The Shops at Somerset Square, set to open later this year, with more than 175 indoor seats, a full bar with 12 tap lines, and multiple TVs. The location will also feature a large outdoor patio with TVs. The chain is going into the former Coldwater Creek retail space.

The interesting number is not 175 seats. It is 6. This is Colony Grill's 11th restaurant and its 6th in Connecticut, following the brand's January 2026 opening in Shelton. Their other CT locations are Stamford, Milford, Fairfield, Norwalk, and Shelton, which means Glastonbury is their first move north of the shoreline corridor and their first in Hartford County. That is the actual local news buried in the press release.

What it does to Somerset Square is worth watching. The center has been trying to shift from soft-goods retail (Coldwater Creek was one of a wave of national women's-apparel closures) toward food and gathering space. A 175-seat restaurant with a patio and a dozen taps is a very different afternoon than a specialty store, and it changes the daytime and evening rhythm of that whole quadrant of Glastonbury Boulevard. If you live off Hebron Avenue or House Street, the traffic pattern on a Friday at 6 p.m. is about to change.

For residents who liked Somerset Square specifically because it was quiet, this is the fair warning. For residents who have been waiting for the east end of town to have a proper walk-in-off-the-patio pizza place, the timeline is "later this year," and the specifics of the buildout suggest they are not aiming for a soft opening.

The through-line

If you have lived here long enough, you can feel the two Glastonburys pulling in different directions this month. On Matson Hill, the pick-your-own farms are at their most productive in a stretch of season that gets shorter every year the weather gets weirder. On Glastonbury Boulevard, a shoreline restaurant chain is planting a flag in a space that used to sell cardigans.

August is when both of those stories are happening at full volume. A good weekend uses both. Pick blueberries in the morning, listen to the Town Band at Riverfront on Wednesday, and drive past the Somerset Square construction fence on your way home so you know what to expect when the doors open.

The town rewards residents who pay attention to their calendar. That is not a new observation, but this month it is a useful one.

If you have been in your Glastonbury home for a while and are starting to think about what the next chapter looks like, whether that is more space, less space, or helping a family member sort out a longtime property, Shelby Muraski knows this side of the river. Let's Connect.