Minnetonka's Tuesday Doubleheader: Three Weeks Left to Catch Both

If you've found yourself parked at The Marsh on a recent Tuesday evening, tote bag in one hand, sweet corn in the other, wondering whether you have time to make it to Civic Center Park before the band starts, you're not imagining the rush. This summer, Minnetonka accidentally built its whole social calendar around one day of the week, and the window to catch both halves of it in a single evening is closing faster than most residents realize.

The Minnetonka Farmers Market runs every Tuesday afternoon, 2 to 6 p.m., through September 29, in the parking lot at The Marsh, 15000 Minnetonka Boulevard. A few miles away, over at the Civic Center Park amphitheater on Minnetonka Boulevard, the city's free Music in the Park series has been filling lawn chairs on Tuesday evenings since June 23, running 6:30 to 8 p.m. Neither event was scheduled with the other in mind. They just happen to land on the same weekday, which means for a few months each summer, Tuesday is effectively Minnetonka's town square.

That overlap is not permanent. The concert series is the one with an expiration date.

The Overlap Ends Sooner Than You'd Think

The city's own calendar is slightly inconsistent about exactly when Music in the Park wraps this year. One page lists the run as June 23 through Aug. 26. Another, the event listing for the season's closing show, lists it as June 23 through Aug. 25. Only the 25th actually falls on a Tuesday in 2026, which is the day the series runs, so the safe bet is that the last concert lands that week, not the week after.

That leaves three Tuesdays, starting this week, where you can still do both in one trip.

After Aug. 25, the market keeps going alone for five more Tuesdays, into the last day of September, but the built-in double feature is done until next summer. If you have been meaning to make an evening of it rather than picking one or the other, this is the stretch to do it in.

The market itself is worth lingering at regardless. It runs with more than 30 rotating vendors selling produce, eggs, meats, cheeses, baked goods, honey, and cut flowers, and it accepts cash, credit, debit, and EBT, with EBT and SNAP shoppers able to match their first $10 in tokens with matching Market Bucks and Produce Market Bucks each visit. There is live music at the market too, separate from the amphitheater show later that evening, so a Tuesday at The Marsh has its own soundtrack before you even drive over to Civic Center Park.

Getting There Is About to Get Easier

Right now, walking or biking to the market from the east side of Minnetonka Boulevard means dealing with a gap in the trail network. That is finally getting fixed, and the timing lines up with this year's construction season.

The city has been preparing a new segment of the Minnetonka Boulevard Trail, an eight-foot paved path on the north side of the boulevard running from Tonkawood Road to The Marsh. According to the January 2026 Minnetonka Memo, crews are set to resume work on the segment later this year, and once it's finished it will close the only missing link in the trail network between Highway 101 and Hopkins Crossroad. Outgoing Mayor Brad Wiersum framed the completed connection in plain terms, noting that having a finished trail where people can walk, bike, or run safely adds real benefit for residents.

The prep work has actually been underway for a while. Private utilities began burying power and communication lines along the corridor starting in spring 2025, and gas main replacement has been happening alongside it, which explains any orange cones or CenterPoint Energy crews you may have noticed near Sussex Drive over the past year or so. The project also adds a new pedestrian crossing at Sussex Drive itself. Once it's done, a Tuesday market run on foot or by bike from that side of the boulevard stops being an obstacle course and starts being the obvious way to go.

What's Different This Year

If your Tuesday routine includes dinner before the concert, the rotation of options near Civic Center Park has shifted. Toma Mojo Grill, the fast-casual Spanish-Portuguese spot near Ridgedale that had built a following over four years for its chicken tenders, closed its doors at the end of December 2025. It had started as a rotisserie chicken concept from two Tilia veterans before pivoting to a more value-focused tender menu, and while the Richfield location is still open and still catering, the one closest to the amphitheater is gone. It's a small thing, one fewer option in the pre-concert rotation, but it's the kind of change that matters more to someone who eats there every other week than to anyone reading a general list of Minnetonka restaurants.

The Practical Bit

A few details worth knowing before you head out on a Tuesday between now and Labor Day:

• Weather updates run through the city's Weather Hotline at 952-939-8355, the same number used across Minnetonka's outdoor summer events.
• The market's vendor list for 2026 closed early due to high demand, so what you see on a given Tuesday is close to the full lineup for the rest of the season, not a rotating cast that will suddenly expand.
• Concert dates are announced individually through the city's calendar rather than published as one master lineup at the start of summer, so it's worth checking the specific week if you're planning around a particular act.
• Parking at The Marsh has generally been unaffected by the trail construction so far, though that could shift as the Tonkawood-to-Marsh segment moves into active construction later this year.

A Season Worth Noticing While It's Still Here

None of this is really about a farmers market or a concert series in isolation. It's about the fact that Minnetonka's summer rhythm, at least this year, has a shelf life that most residents haven't clocked. The market will outlast the concerts by five weeks. The trail that makes both easier to reach on foot is being built as you read this. And the food options around Civic Center Park are quietly different from what they were a year ago. That's the texture of an ordinary season in an ordinary suburb, and it changes a little every year whether anyone announces it or not.

We spend a lot of our time paying attention to exactly this kind of detail, not because it sells houses but because it's how you actually know a place. If you've got a favorite market vendor, a shortcut to the amphitheater, or a read on what's replacing Toma Mojo's old spot, we'd genuinely like to hear it. And if a longer conversation about Minnetonka, or any of the west metro communities around Lake Minnetonka, ever turns toward buying, selling, or building, Ulrich Real Estate Group is a Wayzata-based team that has spent decades paying attention to neighborhoods like this one for exactly that reason.