Milpitas Spends October Moving Park to Park, While Great Mall Drive Fills In Behind It

Milpitas holds its October community events in its parks instead of on a downtown main street. This month the City sends each Saturday to a different park. Milpitas Fiesta is at Delano Manongs Park on October 10, Pumpkins in the Park is at Cardoza Park on October 17, and the Día de Muertos Sugar Skull 5K is at Gill Memorial Park on October 24.

The food news this fall is gathering in one place. Three of the newest restaurant and drink filings in the city carry Great Mall Drive addresses, and a fourth tenant at the mall has announced it will reopen this winter. So a Milpitas fall weekend works best as a route. Start at whichever park is hosting that Saturday, then head to the corridor where the new menus are coming in.

A Calendar That Changes Parks Every Week

The City's October calendar lists exactly these three events and no other City Calendar entries for the month. Each one is short, two hours at most, so getting there is as much of the planning as the event itself.

The times move later in the day for the first event and earlier for the last. The Fiesta takes the late afternoon, Pumpkins in the Park takes the late morning, and the 5K takes the early morning. If you're planning a meal around any of them, that order matters more than the dates do.

October 10 Opens in the City's Newest Named Park

The season starts at Delano Manongs Park. The Milpitas City Council approved the name unanimously on April 18, 2023, after Mayor Carmen Montano and Vice Mayor Evelyn Chua recommended it at a naming subcommittee meeting that March. The name honors the Filipino American farmworkers of the Delano Grape Strike. The Milpitas Beat describes a strike led by community organizer Larry Itliong and driven by 1,500 agricultural workers known as manongs, an Ilocano word meaning "older brother or uncle." The same article credits their work with helping set the stage for the founding of the United Farm Workers.

The park covers four acres in the Milpitas Metro Specific Plan area, along McCandless Drive. When it was named, The Milpitas Beat listed a sports field, a dog park, picnic areas, walking trails, a playground, a pedestrian bridge and public restrooms. That makes the Fiesta the one event this month held inside the city's newest neighborhood, so the season starts in the part of Milpitas that is still taking shape.

The City has not posted Fiesta details yet. Its event page didn't load when we checked, so the lineup of activities, food and performers is still unconfirmed. Check the Milpitas Fiesta page before you go.

The same evening has a second event a short drive away. An organizer listing on an events site shows Art of Living Free Schools hosting a Garba-Dandiya fundraiser at the Milpitas Sports Center, 1325 E. Calaveras Blvd., from 6 to 10:30 p.m. on October 10. Tickets are listed at $25 early bird and $30 regular, and children five and under get in free. Music is by Piyush Nagar and troupe, with Shivohum Bhajan Clubbing on the program for the first time. The City calendar doesn't include it, so confirm details with the organizer. On paper, though, you could leave the Fiesta at 6 p.m. and arrive as the garba starts.

October 17 Moves to Cardoza Park

Pumpkins in the Park is the City's long-running Halloween event, and this year it's at Cardoza Park, where Kennedy Drive meets N. Park Victoria Drive. A current event listing describes these activities as free:

• Bounce houses
• Trick-or-treating at community booths
• Kid crafts
• A costume contest
• Field games
• Performances by youth community groups

A Pumpkin Pass adds the premium activities: a petting zoo, a rock climbing wall and special inflatable games. We couldn't find a 2026 price for the pass, and the figure on older City pages comes from a previous year. The Pumpkins in the Park page is the place to check before you buy.

One playground won't reopen in time for Halloween. The playground at Sinnott Park closed for a renovation under the City's Parks and Recreation Master Plan, which identified it as aging and not ADA compliant. The City Council awarded the contract to Star Construction, Inc., on April 7. In May, The Mercury News reported that the work should be finished by early 2027.

October 24 Starts Early at Gill Memorial Park

The month ends with the Día de Muertos Sugar Skull 5K at Gill Memorial Park, from 9 to 11 a.m. The City's 2026 race page didn't load when we checked, so this year's fees, deadlines, age groups and route are still unconfirmed. Older race details describe a past year and may not apply now. Registration and race-day details will be on the Sugar Skull 5K page.

Put the three Saturdays together and the City has scheduled its fall in three different neighborhoods in three straight weeks. The food side of the city is doing the opposite and concentrating along a single road.

Between Saturdays, New Food Is Lining Up on Great Mall Drive

These businesses are listed in a South Bay permit tracker, the Great Mall's own news feed and recent WhatNow reporting. Each is at a different stage, and as of early October, none of them is confirmed open.

1. Chubby Cattle, 248 Great Mall Drive. WhatNow reported on September 9 that the Japanese all-you-can-eat barbecue brand is preparing to open near Entrance 2. The main format is a 90-minute Wagyu barbecue with beef from Japan, Australia and the U.S., plus seafood, sushi, hand rolls and egg tarts. Neither the restaurant nor the mall had posted an opening date.
2. Andersen Bakery, 270 Great Mall Drive. The tracker logged a final inspection on September 15. The tracker itself cautions that a final inspection date is not an opening date.
3. TH Sugarcane & Juices, 447 Great Mall Drive, Unit 112. Listed as coming soon, with a permit dated September 30.
4. Camille La Vie at Great Mall. On September 30, the mall posted that the store is reopening in winter 2026.

Close by, Hashtag India shows up in the same tracker as coming soon at 61 Serra Way, Suite 120, with a permit dated October 1. The tracker reported zero verified openings anywhere in the South Bay when we checked. Treat this list as businesses on the way, not places you can visit yet.

What Has Already Opened

Two Milpitas food stories from 2026 are already done. In April, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported that Wah Jee Wah, an Indian barbecue restaurant, had reopened in Milpitas after an eight-month closure.

The other is in McCarthy Ranch. Crepe Shibuya opened this summer at 76 Ranch Drive, and The Milpitas Beat covered it in August. Owner Ricky Ma is an electrical engineer originally from Hong Kong who still runs his own engineering firm in San Jose. He has traveled to Japan more than 100 times for work, and he spent two years planning the shop and testing recipes. The crepes are Japanese style, crisp outside, tender inside and rolled into a paper cone. Fillings range from sweet dessert crepes to sushi crepes to purple yam and chestnut paste.

The shop also has more than 100 Gashapon machines, Japanese capsule-toy dispensers, and Ma rotates the toys often. "I always tell my customer if you like a certain kind of toy here, you better get it today," he told The Milpitas Beat. With Pumpkins in the Park running 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and costumes already on, Crepe Shibuya is an easy dessert stop for the afternoon of October 17.

The Transit Center Is Still Open for Proposals

One more site could eventually connect the park calendar and the restaurant corridor. VTA is advertising about 5,250 square feet of cold-shell retail space at the Milpitas Transit Center and lists a café, food service or food hall among the possible uses. Next door, VTA describes a vacant 1.7-acre parcel by the Milpitas BART station and VTA light rail as potentially suitable for transit-oriented development. Developer proposals were due between June 29 and August 21, 2026, and VTA's project page hasn't named a selection. For now, the food hall is one possible use and not an announced tenant.

The season's last public date is the Veterans Day Ceremony at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, November 11, at Veterans Plaza, 457 E. Calaveras Blvd.

Following Great Mall Drive tenants from permit to opening day is one way to see where Milpitas is changing. If you own a home here and want to know how this year's openings and the transit center's next steps could affect your property's value, the team at Milestone Realty can walk you through it. Request a free home valuation or schedule a consultation.