A year ago, a Friday night on the Square meant one decision: Glover Park or dinner, pick one. This summer the map runs differently. Three venues now operate on the same evenings within a five-minute walk of the Glover Park fountain, and the residents who plan around all three are getting a better night than the ones still treating them as separate outings.
The Square now works as three stages, not one
Glover Park is still the anchor. The 2026 Concert Series is the 40th season, presented by Wellstar Health System, and it keeps its familiar rhythm of last-Friday-of-the-month, 8 p.m. downbeat, blankets welcome, rain or shine.
What has shifted around it is the supporting cast. The Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre hosts the 12th Annual Cobb International Film Festival from August 6 through August 9, running four days that overlap the First Friday Art Walk on August 7. Marietta Square Market, the food hall on Mill Street, has turned its parking area into a recurring Summer Night Market on the second Saturday of each month through September, layering vendors and live music onto a night when Glover Park is dark.
The practical result is that between July 31 and Labor Day weekend, there is almost no Friday or Saturday evening without a programmed reason to be on the Square. Residents who used to save the Square for a Concert Series Friday now have a reason to walk down five or six times before the season closes.
What is actually left on the calendar
Here is the remaining lineup, condensed. Dates and times below come from the City of Marietta, the Marietta Visitors Bureau, Cobb Travel & Tourism, and Marietta Square Market's own calendars.
| Date | Event | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| Fri, Jul 31 | Seven Bridges, Eagles tribute, 8 p.m. | Glover Park |
| Fri, Aug 7 | First Friday Art Walk, 5 to 9 p.m. | Around the Square |
| Thu to Sun, Aug 6 to 9 | Cobb International Film Festival | Strand Theatre |
| Sat, Aug 8 | Summer Night Market, 4 p.m. onward | Marietta Square Market |
| Fri, Aug 28 | Kasper and the 911 Band, R&B and pop | Glover Park |
| Sat, Sep 5 to Mon, Sep 7 | Art in the Park, 40th anniversary | Glover Park |
| Sat, Sep 12 | Summer Night Market, 4 p.m. onward | Marietta Square Market |
| Fri, Sep 25 | Nashville Nation, modern country, closes the series | Glover Park |
| Saturdays, 9 a.m. to noon | Farmers Market, year-round | Marietta Square |
Two dates are worth circling twice. August 7 stacks the Art Walk, the opening evenings of the Film Festival, and the leadup to the next morning's Summer Night Market. Labor Day weekend layers Art in the Park, which draws roughly 55,000 guests to Glover Park across three days, onto a Square that is already crowded from the Saturday Farmers Market.
The Friday-night stack
If you have one Friday to spend, August 28 is the tighter build. Kasper and the 911 Band takes Glover Park at 8 p.m., which gives you a full three hours after work to eat, wander, and stake a chair. The block behind the stage on North Park Square becomes street-side table seating for the concerts, so the earlier you commit to a spot the fewer compromises you make later.
Where to eat before the 8 p.m. downbeat
The restaurant map around Glover Park has moved more in the last nine months than it did in the previous three years. Three new arrivals matter for a concert-night plan.
West Park Sports Club opened April 20 at 29 West Park Square, in the space Red Hare Brewing & Distilling used to hold. It is an upscale sports bar from Fork U Concepts, the group behind Taqueria Tsunami and Stockyard Burgers and Bones, and the menu leans toward small plates like crispy rice with tuna, crab rangoon flatbread, and bulgogi cheesesteak sliders rather than standard wings-and-a-pitcher fare. The darker interior and leather seating make it a good pre-show room when the July heat has not quite let go.
Asher & Rose Modern Grocers opened January 19 at 45 West Park Square, replacing Piastra. The mother-son team of Chef Greg Lipman and Betty Bahl reworked the restaurant into a market and café: North Georgia cheeses, custom cuts of meat and fish, prepared meals, and a café menu with pizzas and pastas built around Piastra's holdovers. It is the closest thing the Square has to a wine-and-a-board stop before a concert.
Spring 2nd Branch on Church Street is the casual counterpart to Michelin-starred Chef Brian So's fine-dining Spring, which quietly reopened in a limited capacity in April after a long renovation shutdown. The 2nd Branch is walk-in-only Korean, which is the point: no reservation stress on a Friday when you are also trying to catch an 8 p.m. show. Kimchi jjigae and gochujang-glazed pork belly are the dishes most locals return for.
For groups, Marietta Square Market, the food hall at 68 Mill Street, still solves the "everyone wants something different" problem, and Forno Vero inside the hall has become the informal fireworks-viewing spot on the Fourth of July weekend. On Summer Night Market Saturdays, the hall's own vendors spill into the courtyard.
A few losses worth naming, because they change the plan. Heavenly BBQ closed permanently on March 1. Ted's Montana Grill, which had received historic-board approval to fill the long-vacant "Goldstein Gap" at 77 North Park Square, canceled the project on January 8, so that corner remains empty for now. Pisano's Pizzeria & Italian Kitchen is coming into the former Ahoy! There Be Dragons gallery space next to Willie Rae's, but has not opened yet.
The Labor Day pivot
Art in the Park is not new, but the 40th-anniversary edition September 5 through 7 is the weekend the summer format actually breaks. Glover Park itself becomes the artist market, with 220 juried artists occupying the ground the concert crowds usually claim. The Children's Art Alley and the Chalk Spot draw families away from the North Park Square side, which means the restaurants on West Park Square, particularly Asher & Rose and West Park Sports Club, become the calmer options for anyone trying to eat mid-festival rather than post-.
The following Friday, September 25, Nashville Nation closes the Concert Series with modern country. That is the last time the Square operates in full summer mode until the series returns in April 2027.
If you have lived here long enough to remember when Marietta Square meant Glover Park and everything else was a side quest, this is the summer to update the map. The Square runs on three stages now, and the good nights use all three.
A note on tables and timing
Reserved tables for Glover Park go on sale on the first working business day of each month at 8 a.m., in six-person round, eight-person round, and eight-person street-side configurations. If you have relatives coming for Labor Day and want them to sit rather than stand, the September table sale is the first business day of September, which is Tuesday the 1st. Free lawn seating with a blanket or chair is always available, but the covered street-side tables behind the stage sell out first.
Farmers Market Saturdays run 9 a.m. to noon year-round, which pairs cleanly with the second-Saturday Night Market schedule: same day, opposite ends of the block, six hours apart. If you have never used those two events as bookends on a single Saturday, this is the season to try it.
When the Square eventually sends you somewhere quieter
Late-summer evenings are the best argument for staying on the Square. They are also the best argument for the homes within walking distance of it, and for the ones a few miles east where the Friday-night plan is a shorter drive rather than a longer one. If you are thinking through what a Marietta move actually feels like on a Tuesday morning versus a Friday night, Jamie Grace Miller is happy to walk it through with you.
Schedule a Free Consultation whenever the summer calendar leaves you time.
