Wading River's October Runs Through Route 25A

The Wading River–Shoreham Chamber of Commerce Fall Festival is now on Sunday, October 18, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at The Shoppes at East Wind. It moved because of what the chamber called "the impending storm and expected weather conditions" on the original weekend. The new date is the biggest public gathering on the hamlet's fall calendar. Like nearly everything else scheduled in Wading River this month, it takes place on the brick walkways of a shopping village where the vintage carousel has stood since 2016.

The hamlet's older center sits around the Duck Ponds on North Country Road. It has a different kind of season. Its big day, Duck Pond Day, came in June. This fall its news comes from two towns, Riverhead and Brookhaven, which are splitting the cost of an engineer to work out what it would take to fix the ponds. Most of Wading River's October happens on Route 25A. The rest of this post covers what's on there and what's happening at the ponds.

The October dates, in order

All of these come from the chamber and from East Wind's own event pages.

• Through Friday, October 16: Entry forms and finished scarecrows are due for the 9th Annual Scarecrow Contest at The Shoppes. Entry is free, and families, artists, scout troops and teams are all invited.
• Wednesday, October 14: Desmond's Gastro Pub at East Wind hosts its first Fall Wine and six-course tasting menu. The pours include wine from East Wind's own vineyard.
• Saturday, October 17: Public voting on the scarecrows opens at The Shoppes.
• Sunday, October 18: The rescheduled Fall Festival runs 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with live music by SouthBound, local vendors, food trucks and family activities.
• Through October 31: Scarecrow voting continues. The three scarecrows with the most votes win gift cards, award certificates and ribbons.

One correction to keep in mind: the scarecrow contest page still says the festival is on September 27. That was the original date. The Riverhead News-Review was still reporting it on September 22, before the chamber moved the festival to October 18. The chamber's event page has the current date.

Why the calendar ends up at East Wind

The Shoppes at East Wind is at 5768 Route 25A. RiverheadLOCAL described it in January as an open-air complex of 29 shops in yellow, beige and blue one-story buildings, with a winding brick walkway, benches, trees and a carousel. The same report said East Wind's marketing office handles promotion for the hotel, the wedding venue and The Shoppes together. It also runs events like the holiday tree lighting to bring people in. When one owner has a courtyard, parking, a marketing staff and dozens of tenants, a chamber festival has an obvious place to go. A storm reschedule can also be handled from a single office.

The facilities coordinator who oversees The Shoppes, Rob Cutinella, put it this way to RiverheadLOCAL:

"We're a village of small business owners. We're planning a big thank-you to the community in 2026."

That anniversary celebration hasn't appeared on East Wind's public event listings yet. East Wind's trick-or-treat and tree-lighting pages online still describe last year's events. Until new 2026 dates are posted, treat those pages as a record of last season, not a schedule for this one.

Who's actually behind the shop doors

The village feel East Wind promotes depends on its tenants. Several of them changed over the past year. RiverheadLOCAL's January profile covered four:

• Amber & Crumb opened in November, two months before the profile ran. Co-owner John Manzo bakes cookies, pies, cheesecakes and parfaits by hand and sells honey from his own hives in Cutchogue. He told the paper the complex sits "at a crossroad between the two forks."
• Bellissimo Pizzeria & Pasta has a new owner. Salvatore Lopiccolo, who used to run Rocky Point Pizza, took over in December and added specialty pies such as sausage and broccoli rabe and eggplant rollatini.
• Long Island Crafty One is a ceramic-painting studio near the carousel. Owner Gabriela Schwender previously had a studio in Port Jefferson. She told RiverheadLOCAL that driving up the island for kids' activities is "unaffordable for families."
• Valentina Verde Botanica opened in early December. It's run by 21-year-old Giselle Segovia, who teaches kokedama, the Japanese technique of growing a plant in a ball of sphagnum moss instead of a pot.

All four are still listed in East Wind's current store directory. The directory also lists A Pinch of Sprinkles Bake Shoppe, The Sweet Escape Macarons, The Eastern Squeeze, The Cheese & Spice Market, Tweets Ice Cream Café, Ruggero's Family Style Restaurant, Little Nook Bookstore, North Fork Craft Gallery and Wines By Nature. That means festival day can include a full meal, dessert and a bottle to take home without leaving the brick path.

The carousel's current posted hours are Wednesday and Friday from 2 to 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m., and closed Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Festival Sunday falls inside its weekend hours.

The older center, and why it's quieter this fall

The Duck Ponds are the two ponds south of North Country Road, on either side of Zophar Mills Road. RiverheadLOCAL describes the spot as "the heart of Wading River's historic business district." It's a strange place for a town line. About 90 percent of the park is in Brookhaven. Riverhead's piece is a narrow strip along North Country Road, but according to Riverhead's comprehensive plan, that's where most of the drainage problems start. Storm drains on Riverhead roads carry sediment and pollutants into the water.

The latest step comes after more than 30 years of on-and-off attempts. RiverheadLOCAL lays out the record:

1. 1992 and 1993: Maintenance dredging in the eastern pond.
2. 2005: Riverhead and Brookhaven sign an intermunicipal agreement.
3. 2010: Riverhead agrees to join a federal funding application for a dredging and drainage project of roughly $1 million.
4. April 2012: Brookhaven dredges the eastern pond using a $170,000 state grant matched with $170,000 in town money, and installs a water-quality unit.
5. Late 2013: Brookhaven starts a second phase, including a new culvert under North Country Road.
6. Afterward: Riverhead's planned $170,000 for drainage and bulkhead repairs falls through when an expected county grant is lost, and later applications also fail.
7. February 2026: The two towns formalize a new joint agreement covering planning, design and construction.
8. September 2026: Riverhead appropriates $40,000 and awards M&J Engineering an assessment contract capped at $78,856, with the cost split equally with Brookhaven.

The September vote pays for a study, not shovels. The engineering assessment will look at whether improvements are feasible and recommend how to replace the deteriorated bulkheads, cut stormwater runoff and remove sediment. It doesn't authorize construction or set a full cost.

Two funding requests are still pending. Riverhead is working with U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota's office on about $3.5 million for dredging and new bulkheads, and that money hasn't been awarded. Separately, the Wading River Civic Association co-sponsored a Suffolk County downtown revitalization application for curbing, sidewalks, decorative lighting and signs around the ponds. The county's published schedule has the Legislature awarding 2026 downtown grants this month. As of this writing, we haven't seen the outcome reported.

What's open by the ponds right now

The historic district still has its own shops, just no scheduled October event. Two of them have current details on their own pages.

Blue Water Fish on Sound Road opened Labor Day weekend 2021. Owner Tom Infantolino is a second-generation fish man; his father founded the family's Queens market in 1972. He makes New England clam chowder, fish and chips with local flounder and cod, and lobster rolls. The shop is closed Mondays and open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 to 8 Thursday through Saturday, and 11 to 6 on Sunday.

Willow + Bloom at 2 Sound Road describes itself as being in "the Duck Ponds of historic downtown Wading River." It sells houseplants and vintage and handmade goods, and it hosts workshops and gatherings. Wading River now has two plant shops: Willow + Bloom by the ponds and Valentina Verde Botanica at East Wind.

For a morning coffee before festival day, Mudroom Market opened with a soft launch in July in Shoreham Plaza at 99 Route 25A, Suite 5.

On October 18, the music, food trucks and scarecrows will be at East Wind. At the ponds, the season will look about the same as it did in September, while the engineers' assessment gets started and the county grant decision is still due this month.

The ponds will matter well beyond this season. Once the engineering assessment and the county's grant decision are public, we'll follow what they mean for the streets around North Country Road. If you own a home in Wading River and want to know how the hamlet's two centers affect what it's worth, The Hamptons Edge Team can walk you through it with a free home valuation.