On Saturday, November 14, the Blue Jay Village Merchant Association is sponsoring the Blue Jay Autumn Festival in the Blue Jay Village parking lot at 27214 Highway 189. It starts at 11 a.m., and the Alpine Mountaineer's upcoming events listing lists food, music, carnival games, a petting zoo, a pumpkin pie competition and a beer garden.
The sponsor is what stands out. A merchant association is a group of shop owners, so the people backing this festival are shop owners. The setting is familiar, too. A Saturday in Blue Jay already happens in a parking lot. The Autumn Festival just makes it the biggest one of the year.
The lot that's busy every Saturday morning
The Saturday Craft Fair was going long before anyone booked a petting zoo. According to the same Alpine Mountaineer listing, it runs every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., weather permitting, in the US Bank parking lot on North Bay Road at Highway 189, next to Grocery Outlet. The listing also says new vendors can talk with Chuck at the event.
That's the template for the Autumn Festival. Both happen on open asphalt off Highway 189, both are put on by the people selling things, and both happen on a Saturday. On November 14 the two overlap from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., so one morning gets you the weekly craft tables and the merchants' festival without leaving Blue Jay.
What the merchants are putting in their own lot
The festival lineup leans toward families and the season:
- Pumpkin pie competition. It's the most November thing on the list, and the only part of the day that's a contest.
- Petting zoo and carnival games. Both are listed by the Alpine Mountaineer and on the Lake Arrowhead Communities Chamber of Commerce calendar.
- Live music and food. These keep the lot busy past lunchtime.
- A beer garden. It's in the Alpine Mountaineer's listing and adds an adult corner to a day built around kids.
The festival is in the lot, and the storefronts sit right around it. A merchant-sponsored festival in a shopping center's own parking lot makes walking from a game booth into a shop as easy as it gets. For the merchants, that may be the point of the day.
A storefront built for browsing
One of those storefronts is new this year. In April, the Alpine Mountaineer reported that Mountain Deals, Bargain & Bin Finds had opened at 27240 Highway 189, in the center of Blue Jay, with a grand opening set for May 2. The paper described its stock as discounted and brand-name items, everything from exercise equipment and towels to small appliances and toys.
The store's whole model fits the parking-lot Saturday. Per the same article, new items come in regularly, so the bins change from one visit to the next. A shop where you don't know what you'll find suits a crowd that's already wandering.
Planning around the afternoon
November 14 is busy across the Rim. The Alpine Mountaineer lists Crestline's Top Town Fall Festival for the same day, 1 to 4 p.m. at Crest Forest Drive and Highway 138, with live music, food, kids' crafts and games.
Here's how the hours fit together:
| Time | What's on | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. | Saturday Craft Fair, weather permitting | US Bank parking lot, North Bay Road at Hwy 189, Blue Jay |
| From 11 a.m. | Blue Jay Autumn Festival | Blue Jay Village parking lot, 27214 Hwy 189 |
| 1 to 4 p.m. | Top Town Fall Festival | Crest Forest Drive and Hwy 138, Crestline |
| 2 p.m. | Adult Crafts at the Lake Arrowhead Library | Lake Arrowhead Library |
Blue Jay has the head start. Its craft fair opens two hours before anything else on the list, and the Autumn Festival is underway two hours before Crestline's begins. A Lake Arrowhead household could spend the morning and lunch in Blue Jay and still make the second half of Top Town if the family wants two festivals in one day.
Where the day goes after dark
When the festival winds down, there's a restaurant in Lake Arrowhead Village that opened this summer. John and Heather Hockney held a ribbon cutting on July 27 for Cask & Cure, their second restaurant in the Village. The Alpine Mountaineer covered the opening and quoted Heather on the reason for it:
"We wanted to bring something new, something fresher to Lake Arrowhead Village."
The same article said the couple was also marking 10 years of Lakefront Tap Room, their first Village restaurant. Between the two, they employ about 100 people.
The day starts in Blue Jay's lots, backed by the shop owners, and ends at a table run by a local couple who, as the Alpine Mountaineer reported John saying, "believe in Lake Arrowhead." Local operators run both ends of the day.
The next Saturdays in a lot
After November 14, this outdoor, vendor-run format moves to Skyforest. The Alpine Mountaineer lists Kuffel Corner Market Days in Skyforest on Saturday, November 28, with Tasso Smith playing from 4 to 7 p.m., and again on Saturday, December 19, with Steve Devotion in the same slot. Local vendor pop-ups run from 3 to 8 p.m. both days.
Those markets start later, around sunset, while Blue Jay's craft fair starts in the morning. The Blue Jay Saturday Craft Fair keeps running every week in between, weather permitting, so the US Bank lot on North Bay Road stays a weekly Saturday stop as the weather turns colder.
The craft fair is back the following Saturday at 9 a.m., and Mountain Deals keeps adding new items to its bins.
If living close enough to stroll over to Blue Jay's Saturday stops sounds right to you, Crestline Real Estate knows the streets around Highway 189 well. Schedule a free home consultation with our local mountain experts, and we'll talk about what a regular week looks like from homes near Blue Jay Village.
