Cary's Halloween Season Runs Along Northwest Highway, With Two June Openings Close By

The Cary-Grove Area Chamber of Commerce's Halloween Walk starts near Tasty Sushi and ends at Athletico. Both sit in the Jewel Shopping Center at 630 Northwest Highway, so the Cary parade starts and finishes in the same shopping center.

That one address explains most of Cary's October. The costume events gather on Northwest Highway, at a dance studio at number 530 and the shopping center at 630. A drive-thru coffee shop that opened in June at number 62 is on the same road. Main Street's newest addition opened the same month and offers something different: a sit-down dinner in a building that housed a bank in the early 1900s.

A Parade That Starts and Ends at 630

The Halloween Walk is Saturday, Oct. 24. The Village of Cary's calendar gives the Cary parade as 11 a.m. to noon. The Chamber's event page lists 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the whole event and says it's free. That page also covers Fox River Grove, which likely explains the longer window. For the Cary parade itself, plan on the hour the Village lists.

Because the start and finish share one address, families meeting up after the parade only need to know one place: Athletico, at the end of the route, in the same center where it began.

The Walk is the second of two Saturdays on the corridor. The first comes a week earlier, and it has more going on.

Saturday, Oct. 17, From Morning to Night

Fall-A-Palooza ran on Oct. 11 at Lions Park, 1200 Silver Lake Road, with hayrides, pony rides, a petting zoo and crafts. That was the season's big park event away from the highway. On Oct. 17, the Cary Park District schedules three events between morning and night:

• 9 to 10 a.m., Trick or Trot 5K. Registration is $38 for residents and $55 for nonresidents. The listing doesn't give a start location, so registered runners should look for course details from the Park District.
• 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Craft & Vendor Expo at Cary Grove Park. The listing shows a $20/$30 resident/nonresident fee for ages 15 and up. That's a registration fee; the page doesn't post a general admission price for shoppers.
• 5 to 9 p.m., Haunted House at Inspiration Dance Studio, 530 Northwest Highway. Admission is $5, paid at the door.

The haunted house is set up so families with kids of different ages can split the evening. The Park District's listing sets 5 to 6 p.m. as a non-scary hour, with the full-effect haunted house from 6 to 9. It invites all ages, welcomes costumes, and advises parental discretion for younger children. A family with a preschooler and a middle schooler can go through at 5:30, step out, and send the older child back in after 6, all for $5 a person.

The 5K and the expo take care of the morning and afternoon. For the bookends, a dark early start and a grown-up evening, the corridor and downtown each have something new this year.

A 2016 Experiment Gets a Second Act at 62 Northwest Highway

Cary Out Coffee Breakfast and Lunch is a drive-thru and curbside business in the old Burger King building at 62 Northwest Highway. The Northwest Herald reported in July that the building sat empty for nearly eight years after it opened in 2016 as the country's first drive-thru-only Burger King.

The building went up for cars, and Cary Out kept it that way. Co-owner Tim Tath opened the shop with his sister, Mae Chen, who has several coffee shops in California. Speaking with Shaw Local in March, Tath described the menu as gourmet coffee served conveniently, with "good food made with good ingredients." The menu includes breakfast sandwiches, wraps, pastries and burgers, plus customizable coffees, iced teas and smoothies.

It soft-opened in June and later held a grand opening with a new menu. For a 9 a.m. race start or a parade staging time, a drive-thru breakfast you can eat in the car solves a real problem. The July coverage didn't list hours, so check the shop's Facebook page before planning a pre-dawn stop around it.

Downtown's Answer Comes After Dark

Main Street gained a new dinner option this summer. Leo's 121 on Main opened in June at 121 W. Main St. Leo Florio has owned Tracks Bar & Grill, directly across the street, for more than 40 years. The Northwest Herald notes that Tracks is known for its Best of the Fox award-winning hamburgers.

The new restaurant is pitched differently from Tracks. It serves custom cocktails, and the entrees include walleye, ribeye and prime rib. It's in a historic downtown building that was a bank in the early 1900s. Plans were announced in 2025, and Leo and Sharon Florio marked the opening with a Cary-Grove Chamber ribbon-cutting.

On Oct. 17, the haunted house's full-effect hours end at 9. Parents who handed the older kids' haunted-house run off to a babysitter or grandparent have a new downtown option for dinner that night. Leo's is also the spot for a dinner out the weekend after the parade. As with Cary Out, the July story didn't print hours, so confirm through the restaurant's site before booking around it.

Where the Calendar Goes After Oct. 31

Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and the Village has set trick-or-treat hours from 3 to 7 p.m. on Oct. 31. On that day the action spreads out to front porches across the village, after two Saturdays of events on the corridor.

The Park District's December 2026 calendar already lists its holiday events:

The craft fair lands just seven weeks after the Oct. 17 expo, so anyone who misses the October one has a second chance before the holidays. Each event links to its own listing on the Cary Park District calendar.

If Halloween on your block has you thinking about how your part of Cary has changed, or what a move within the village could look like, Mandy Montford is glad to talk it through over coffee, from Cary Out or anywhere else. Let's Connect.