Best Things to Do in Downtown Stillwater This August

Something quietly shifted along the St. Croix this year. For a long time, the riverfront's food identity was anchored to one building at 425 Nelson Street where The Dock Cafe served breakfast for decades. That building has a new tenant, downtown has a new sandwich shop, and a Guatemalan concept is remodeling a space to open in September. All of this sits within a few blocks of North Lowell Park, which happens to be where the last two Tuesdays of the summer are about to unfold. If you live here, August is the easiest month of the year to string a walkable evening together downtown. The pieces have finally clicked into a stretch you can plan around.

Here is what is worth knowing, week by week and block by block.

The last two Summer Tuesdays

Summer Tuesdays is celebrating its 24th year of bringing the community together for family-friendly fun along the St. Croix River, held every Tuesday evening from July 7 through August 11, 2026, at North Lowell Park in downtown Stillwater. That leaves two more Tuesdays on the calendar after this weekend.

The format has stayed consistent all summer. Market opens at 5:00, live music runs 6:00 to 8:00, and the movie begins approximately 10 minutes after sunset. There are approximately 35 to 50 vendors, local foods, live music, and movies on an inflatable movie screen. The remaining nights include performances from Fiddle & Flannels, Mr. Whoopie playing classic rock covers, and Lars Carlson & the Secondhand Hipsters, with the movie slate rounding out with Hoppers, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and the live-action How to Train Your Dragon. The Stuff the Bus school supply drive runs alongside the series, collecting for United Way Washington County East, which is a useful reminder if you have a kid heading back to class.

A note that matters if you have brought your dog and gotten turned around before: bring a chair, a pillow and blanket or just yourself, and dogs are welcome if they are well behaved, leashed, and picked up after.

If you have been meaning to go all summer and kept pushing it, this is the window.

The new all-day riverfront spot in the Dock Cafe building

The single biggest change to downtown's food geography this year is at the old Dock Cafe. Breakfast with sunrise views of the St. Croix River and surf-and-turf dinners with a Latin twist are on the menu at Río 1854, the new restaurant bringing all-day service to Stillwater's former Dock Cafe space.

The people behind it are worth knowing. Siblings Luna and Anthony Ramirez and their father, Adrian Ramirez, are behind the mid-scale "Latin craft kitchen," which focuses on fusion dishes inspired by Latin American cuisine. Adrian Ramirez founded Taco Libre and the South St. Paul grocery store Mexatlan Supermercado, so the family has been in Twin Cities food for a while before landing on a Stillwater riverfront corner.

What they are actually cooking is the part locals should pay attention to, because it is not a Dock Cafe copy. Luna Ramirez said the Stillwater community has gravitated toward chilaquiles, birria, arepas and other savory dishes. The breakfast menu also features a range of omelettes, pancakes, waffles, fresh-squeezed orange juice and more. At dinnertime, Río 1854 specializes in prime steaks, fresh seafood and cocktails, with menu highlights including the fire-grilled filet mignon, Peruvian ceviche and Mexican aguachile.

The hours are the practical detail. Río 1854 launched dinner service and is now open daily from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m., which means the sunrise-coffee-with-a-view slot that Dock Cafe held for years still exists in that building. It is just wearing a different jacket now.

A sandwich counter you can walk to from the park

Two blocks up the hill from Lowell Park, the other new opening this spring is a very different kind of business. Downtown Stillwater is getting a new sandwich shop. E's Gourmet Sandwiches opens at 221 Myrtle St. E on May 6, led by 20-year-old, first-time restaurateur Ethan Sorensen.

The backstory tells you what kind of place this is trying to be. Sorensen built experience in restaurants through his teens, including a stint as Lake Elmo Inn's marketing manager, and saw a dearth of high-quality fast casual options. He credits mentorship from his aunt, chef Jamie Malone, who previously owned and operated Grand Cafe, and cites the influence of Pat Weber of Mise en Place Consulting, who guided Sorensen in the opening and helped shape the menu. That is a lot of Twin Cities chef gravity behind a sandwich counter run by someone who cannot legally order a beer.

The audience Sorensen describes is basically everyone who is already on Myrtle Street during a workday or a summer weekend. "I've always loved seeing all kinds of people come through for a bite," Sorensen says. "Construction crews, office workers, tourists, locals." There is also a summer expansion worth flagging for anyone who spends time on that block after dark. In addition to the option to order at the restaurant, E's will launch an ordering kiosk at the neighboring bar, No Neck Tony's, in the summer.

For a walkable Tuesday plan: grab sandwiches on Myrtle, walk down to North Lowell Park, catch the last hour of music before the movie starts.

Also on the August calendar

A few more things happening in and around downtown that residents keep asking about:

• Bridge The Valley Bike Rally, Kid Zone. August 9, 2026, 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM at South Lowell Park, 201 Water St N. Family-friendly, right on the river, and it pairs naturally with a coffee stop.
• Joint Chamber Cruise Mixer. August 13, 2026, 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Stillwater River Boats, 525 South Main Street. Public notice event, chamber-hosted.
• Yoga in the Park at Lake Elmo Park Reserve. Reconnect with the rhythms of nature as you flow through a variety of yoga poses under the open sky. All levels are welcome. A short drive south if the Lowell Park scene is too busy on a given evening.

What's coming in September

The reason this August feels like a hinge month is that another opening is already in the pipeline. El Sazon, the south Minneapolis Mexican restaurant that got its start in an Eagan gas station convenience store, is opening its second stand-alone restaurant in Stillwater.

The new concept is not a copy of the Minneapolis restaurant. "For their new operation in Stillwater, called Xelas by El Sazon, we are switching gears a little bit and going deeper into chef Cristian's roots, putting a bigger focus on Guatemalan cuisine," said Karen de Leon. Ruacho, the de Leons' partner in the restaurants, will be the master behind the bar. The exact location is still under wraps, but Xelas is slated to open in September after a remodel. That gives three distinct new dining identities landing downtown inside a single calendar year, in addition to what was already here.

Why this stretch of August is worth planning around

Zoom out for a second. A year ago, if you wanted to walk from a free family event at Lowell Park to a sit-down dinner, your options were the ones that had been there for a decade. This August, the same walk includes a first-time restaurateur's sandwich counter on Myrtle, an all-day Latin kitchen with 7 a.m. coffee and 10 p.m. cocktails on the water, and a countdown to a Guatemalan spot that will open before the leaves turn. The Tuesday programming that has been running for 24 years is still there to anchor it. The two mornings you can walk down to the river for a proper breakfast are back, in the same building where you used to.

Stillwater doesn't get a summer this dense with new openings very often. If you have been meaning to actually use the downtown that is a five or ten minute drive from your driveway, the next fourteen days are the answer to the question.

Come say hi

We are a Minnesota real estate team based in Edina, and we spend a lot of time in Stillwater because the people we work with keep pointing us here. If you want to chat about the neighborhood, share a Tuesday-night sandwich recommendation, or just say hello, Minnesota Home Girls would love to hear from you. No pressure, no pitch, no rush. Just neighbors comparing notes on a summer worth paying attention to.