If you have lived in Lacey for more than a season, you already know that Huntamer Park is doing most of the work of a summer here. What is easier to miss is that the park is not running one program. It is running three, on three different clocks, for three different audiences, in the same six-acre footprint at 618 Woodland Square Loop SE.
Once you see the split, the rest of the week arranges itself. The Depot picks up what the park cannot. The Thurston County Fair takes one weekend off the top. And a restaurant coming to the 640 Building is about to close the one gap residents have complained about for years.
Wednesday at noon belongs to the desk crowd
The Lacey In Tune Noon Tunes series runs Wednesdays from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. at Huntamer, and it is aimed squarely at people who work in Woodland Square and want to eat their lunch outside. The lineup is deliberately mixed so that no two Wednesdays sound alike. This year that has meant the 133rd Army National Guard Band's Full Metal Racket on July 8, Lavon Blue on July 15, the Alma y Azucar Quintet on July 22, and the Raucous Band on July 29.
August closes the run with Platinum Soul on August 5 and Lindsay Quella Kara on August 12. If you have not been, the practical thing to know is that the noon hour is the only Huntamer window with reliable shade near the stage, and it is the only one where you can reasonably eat a takeout lunch from Woodland Square and be back at your desk by 1:15.
Tuesday at 6:30 is the kids' hour
The Tuesday evening slot is a different program with a different audience. Lacey In Tune's children's series runs 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., free, all ages, and it is unapologetically for families with small kids. The August dates left on the calendar as of this writing are short but strong:
- Tuesday, August 4 — Eric Ode
- Tuesday, August 11 — Angel Ocasio, described by the city as a nationally recognized top physical comedian who combines silly antics with magic, juggling and audience participation
If your children are past the picture-book age, this is not your night. If they are not, this is the easiest weeknight plan in Lacey. Bring a blanket. Picnic tables get claimed by 6:00.
Friday is the concert-and-movie night, and it is the one you plan around
The Friday program is the biggest of the three. Concerts start at 7:00 p.m., a movie follows at dusk, and food trucks set up beginning at 6:00. This is date-night pacing rather than lunch-hour pacing, and it is worth reading the pairings before you go.
The two August dates that still matter are the July 31 close-out with Band After Midnight, a sensational ABBA tribute, and Mamma Mia (PG-13), and the August 7 finale with 13 Til Midnight Band, a premier Taylor Swift tribute band, and Zootopia 2 (PG). The programming choice is not accidental. An ABBA tribute paired with the ABBA movie is the kind of thing that fills a park with adults on lawn chairs and empties it of strollers by 8:30. A Taylor Swift tribute paired with a family cartoon does the opposite.
A note on seating that catches new residents off guard: bring your own chair or blanket. The park has a handful of picnic tables and benches, but they get claimed quickly and there is no rental option on-site.
When the park is too much, The Depot is the other Friday
Not everyone wants to sit on grass. The Lacey Night Market at the Lacey Food Truck Depot, 5700 Lacey Boulevard Southeast, runs Friday evenings from 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. during the summer window. It is free, all-ages, and it operates on a themed schedule rather than a musical one.
The two August nights worth putting on the calendar are Island Night, which the organizers describe as a celebration of Pacific Islander culture, heritage, music, and community, and Y2K / Throwback Night on August 21, event #11 of the 16-event Season 3 lineup. If you have already used the Friday Huntamer slot for the concert-and-movie night on August 7, the Depot is the natural follow-up on August 14, 21, and 28. It reads as a Friday alternative rather than a competitor, and the two crowds do not overlap much.
The Thurston County Fair weekend broke the pattern
One weekend already interrupted the rhythm this summer. The 2026 Thurston County Fair ran Thursday, July 30 through Sunday, August 2 at the Thurston County Fairgrounds, 3054 Carpenter Rd SE, Lacey, and the fair named a bald eagle mascot, Colonel Beaks, to honor America's upcoming 250th anniversary in 2026.
If you were wondering why Huntamer felt quieter than usual the last weekend of July, that is why. The fair pulls the same regional families who otherwise would have been at the Friday concert-and-movie night. It is worth building around next summer, because the same overlap will happen the last weekend of July again.
What Bottega will change about the 640 Building
The one honest weakness of the Huntamer summer is that there is no walkable dinner directly attached to it. You can pack a picnic. You can hit a food truck. You cannot, right now, walk out of the park and into a sit-down restaurant without crossing a parking lot.
That is about to change. In January the South Sound Report confirmed that a new restaurant called Bottega is officially on its way to the 640 Building, located just off the park, as a new concept by Rick Nelsen, the founder of Ricardo's Restaurant. The new spot will occupy roughly 5,600 square feet and is already moving forward with interior build-out, with no official opening date yet. Ricardo's has been a Lacey steakhouse fixture for years, and the second concept from the same operator on the park's edge is the kind of small change that quietly rewrites how residents use Huntamer on a Friday night. A pre-concert reservation at 5:30 becomes a real option instead of a hypothetical one.
The other addition worth naming is Cooper's Food & Drink, the Tacoma import that opened at 2400 Marvin Rd. NE, Suite A under Greg and Tanya Troger. It sits on the other side of the city from Huntamer, closer to the Marvin Road corridor, and it is the practical answer for anyone whose Friday plans start on that side of I-5.
One August week, mapped
If you want a working template for the second week of August, this is how the calendar reads for a Lacey household that wants to use all three park clocks and both Fridays:
- Tuesday, August 11, 6:30 p.m. — Angel Ocasio at Huntamer, if you have young children. If not, skip it and start Wednesday.
- Wednesday, August 12, noon — Lindsay Quella Kara closes the Noon Tunes series. Grab lunch from the Woodland Square side and walk over.
- Friday, August 14, 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. — Lacey Night Market at The Depot, 5700 Lacey Blvd SE.
- Saturday, August 15, any time between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. — The Lacey Museum's pennant-making activity is free and open to all ages Thursday and Friday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. or Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and it runs through August 29 if you want a low-key indoor stop before the season ends.
- Friday, August 21, 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. — Y2K / Throwback Night at The Depot.
That is a week with three free evenings and two lunches worth of programming, all within a five-minute drive of Woodland Square, and none of it requiring a ticket.
Why this matters if you already live here
The instinct with a season like this one is to check five different websites in five different tabs. The point of a resident's calendar is that you do not have to. Huntamer's three clocks and The Depot's Fridays cover most of what a Lacey August looks like from the inside, and the only variable that changes year to year is the fair weekend and whichever new business is finishing its build-out on the park's edge.
If you are weighing a move within the South Sound and want a candid, unhurried conversation about what Lacey feels like day to day, or you are already here and thinking about your next chapter, Evolve Real Estate PNW is glad to talk on your timing. Let's Connect when the season slows down.
