Kingston runs two separate weekend markets through the warm months, and this year they will not close on the same weekend. The Kingston Sunset Market, the monthly evening market at Port of Kingston Kiwanis Park, plays its last set of the 2026 season on Saturday, October 3. The Kingston Public Market, the weekly Sunday market next to the ferry terminal at Mike Wallace Park, keeps going into the middle of October. Anyone who treats the first weekend of October as the end of "market season" in Kingston will miss whatever Sundays are still left across the street.

The two markets sit close enough to blur together on a quick pass through town, and most calendars that mention Kingston list them as a single seasonal attraction. They are run separately, on different schedules, in different parks, and they do not share a finish line.

Two Parks, Two Rhythms

Mike Wallace Park sits right beside the ferry walk-off ramp, which is why the Kingston Public Market has held its ground there every Sunday since May, 10am to 3pm. The lineup is the familiar weekly market shape: produce stands, artisan tents, baked goods and jams, and a rotating slate of local musicians who get individual billing on the market's own calendar. Silver City Trio played the park in late August, Over the Edge followed the next weekend, and Close Enough took the slot in mid-September. It is a market built around repetition, the same grass, the same hours, week after week, from spring into fall.

Cross Washington Boulevard and the rhythm changes completely. Port of Kingston Kiwanis Park is home to the Kingston Sunset Market, which the market's own team describes as sitting across the road from the ferry terminal, in a spot it moved to after starting out elsewhere. Instead of Sunday mornings, it runs first Saturday evenings, 4pm to 8pm, June through October, with the market timed so the light drops over the water while vendors are still open. The Kingston Chamber of Commerce cut the ribbon when the market settled into Kiwanis Park, a small detail that signals this is not a pop-up but an established market with a permanent home on port property.

Where the Public Market shows up close to two dozen times between May and mid-October, the Sunset Market only gets five nights on the calendar all year. That gap in frequency is part of why the two get folded into one mental category by anyone who is not tracking both directly. One is the everyday backdrop of a Kingston weekend. The other is a once-a-month occasion.

The Sunset Market's Five Nights

The 2026 Kingston Sunset Market schedule runs on a simple pattern, first Saturday of the month, June through October:

Five evenings, evenly spaced, and then the season is done at Kiwanis Park until next June. There is no bonus date tacked onto the end and no second October Saturday. October 3 is the market's last appearance for the year.

The Two Closing Weekends

This is where the overlap gets confusing if you are only paying attention to one market. The Sunday before the Sunset Market's finale, Mike Wallace Park hosts Dog Days of Summer on September 27, a themed edition of the regular Kingston Public Market where dogs get the run of the grass alongside the usual produce and artisan stalls. It is still just a Sunday market day, not a special one-off event separate from the weekly series, but it is the last themed Sunday before the calendar turns toward the two actual closing dates.

Six days later, on October 3, the Kingston Sunset Market closes out its season at Kiwanis Park with its final Saturday evening. That is the finish line for the monthly market entirely, for the year.

The Kingston Public Market does not stop there. It keeps its Sunday schedule going at Mike Wallace Park past that first Saturday in October, continuing into the middle of the month before the season winds down for good. So the two markets close roughly a week to a week and a half apart, with the more photogenic, once-a-month evening market ending first and the plainer, weekly morning market outlasting it. Anyone who assumes the whole thing wraps after the Sunset Market's last Saturday will show up at Mike Wallace Park the following Sunday and find it still going.

What's Open Around Both Parks Right Now

Both parks sit inside easy walking distance of Kingston's small downtown strip, which means the market crowd and the restaurant crowd overlap most weekends through the fall.

Near the ferry terminal and Mike Wallace Park, the standbys have not changed much. The Filling Station has been pouring drinks in the same nostalgic, character-filled bar since 1980, an easy walk from the ferry. The Kingston Ale House went through a change of ownership and a full remodel recently, and now runs a new menu built around Northwest seafood, steaks, burgers and salads, with a full bar, a deck for warm-weather dining, karaoke Friday and Saturday nights, and a covered patio where dogs are welcome, which pairs neatly with a Dog Days Sunday. J'aime Les Crêpes, the breakfast spot with two hours of free parking at the Port, is easiest to get into on a quiet weekday morning right now, before its weekend brunch rush catches up to it.

The Saucy Sailor, a small storefront with picnic tables that opened to lines of hungry ferry-goers, has finally reached the point where a table is doable without much of a wait, especially for parties of two or three. The BBQ pulled pork pie is the reason people come back, and it also travels frozen if you want to take one home. Point Julia Cafe, tucked inside The Point Casino, keeps a simple menu of soups, sandwiches and salads anchored by a salmon chowder that has built a steady following, though the kitchen takes its time and the wait can run long on a busy afternoon.

Closer to Kiwanis Park and the Sunset Market's new home, d'Vine Bistro reopened after a renovation and has become a reliable spot for a romantic dinner with live piano, fish and chips, and crab stuffed mushrooms that outperform the green curry mussels on the same menu. Calling a day or two ahead is worth it on weekend nights. The newest addition to the strip is Argensol Kitchen, a family-owned Argentine eatery run by Sabrina Errecalde and Leonardo Presutto, who spent three years catering across the Kitsap Peninsula before opening this storefront in Kingston. For something faster, The Smoked Asian food truck has been parked at the Gas Station spot since 2024, building a following around its smoked brisket lumpia, though showing up by noon is the difference between getting a plate and missing out.

None of this closes when either market does. The restaurants and the food truck run on their own hours year-round. But the last few weekends of overlapping market traffic are worth planning around, since parking near both parks gets tighter on Sunset Market Saturdays and Public Market Sundays alike.

Anyone mapping out a last outdoor weekend in Kingston before the fall rain sets in should treat these as two separate dates on the calendar, not one. October 3 closes the book on the Sunset Market at Kiwanis Park for the year. Whatever Sunday comes after that is still Mike Wallace Park's to keep, at least for a little while longer.

If you already track Kingston's calendar closely enough to know which market closes first, you have the kind of local fluency that also makes house hunting here easier. The Agency Bainbridge Island works this stretch of the Kitsap waterfront year-round, and we're happy to talk through what a short walk to either park is actually worth. Schedule a private consultation whenever the conversation turns that direction.