Southampton Village's Busiest Summer Is Over. Here's What Stays Open Through the Holidays.

In his Fall 2026 letter in the Village News, Mayor William M. Manger Jr. wrote that many businesses and Coopers Beach reported their busiest summer ever. He credited the US Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, the nation's sesquicentennial parade and the new garden at Southampton Arts Center, with its fountains and amphitheater. Two months later, a Jobs Lane boutique announced it would close.

Dazzelle's store manager wrote a viewpoint in The Southampton Press, published November 2. She said the boutique will close at the end of January after 24 years in the village. She also named the day after the season ends. "We even have a name for the Tuesday after Labor Day: 'Tumbleweed Tuesday,'" she wrote.

After Thanksgiving, the village runs on a short list of year-round tenants and the cultural institutions along Jobs Lane and around Agawam Park. That pairing carries the village's winter, and it is also what the trustees' new committee is trying to build on.

Who has a door open after October

A seasonal storefront often closes for the winter. A year-round business usually stays put. This fall one restaurant took a third route and moved into a summer neighbor's empty building.

According to Spark Hamptons, Union Burger Bar closed its Bowden Square location on September 27. It reopened October 8 as Union in the Southampton Social Club building at 256 Elm Street, next to the train station. The Social Club is closed for the season and has lent Union the space for fall and winter. The club plans to return next summer with an expanded Union inside. Union now serves sushi along with burgers, and most nights there is trivia, bingo or live music.

The rest of the village sorts out like this:

Two entries in that table say a lot about the village. Finley's Fiction is the second store from the Shelter Island original, and it gave Southampton an independent bookstore for the first time since Southampton Books closed. Sirene opened on the corner that was John Duck's for most of a century, then Seasons of Southampton, then Main Prospect. Both opened this year and said they would stay through the winter, which is exactly what the village needs from its new tenants. Hours on the East End change after Thanksgiving, so call or check before you drive over.

The nonprofits fill the calendar

Restaurants decide whether the village has a place to eat on a December Tuesday. Most of the reasons to go into town in the first place come from the nonprofits and the Playhouse.

Southampton Arts Center at 25 Jobs Lane is showing East End Collected 9 through December 27, open Friday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The Southampton History Museum and the Southampton Playhouse fill in the dates around it. From publish day to the end of the year, the dated calendar runs:

1. Thursday, November 19. The Southampton Playhouse shows I Play Rocky, plus The History of Concrete with John Wilson in person as part of its East End Cinema series.
2. Saturday, November 21. The East End Filmmaker Pitch Forum at the Playhouse.
3. Wednesday, November 25. Three first-run titles at the Playhouse: Focker In Law, The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth and Hexed.
4. Friday, November 27. A free community screening of Project Hail Mary at the Playhouse.
5. November 27 to 29. The Southampton History Museum's Carriage Thrift Shop opens for holiday shopping.
6. Saturday, November 28. The Parade of Lights and the Agawam Park tree lighting, covered below.
7. Sunday, November 29. Pilates & Brunch with Club Pilates at Claude's.
8. Thursday, December 3. Holiday Paint & Sip with Deborah Acquino at Southampton Arts Center, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., painting ornaments.
9. Saturday, December 5. Crafty Christmas Santa Brunch with a ColorPop Workshop at Claude's.
10. Thursday, December 17. Avengers: Doomsday in Dolby Atmos at the Playhouse.
11. Saturday, December 19. Hearthside Cheer at the Southampton History Museum.

In his Village News letter, the mayor described the arts center's new garden as "a tremendous hit" and thanked Alina and John Paulson for paying to transform that village-owned property. The garden was planned around summer crowds. In winter, the building next to it is one of the few in the village with a public schedule every weekend.

November 28 sets the village's holiday season

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the one date when the whole village is booked at once. According to the Southampton Christmas Decorations Committee, the Parade of Lights starts at dusk, 4:30 p.m. Decorated vehicles from the village's volunteer fire and EMS departments lead it. At 5:30 p.m., the tree lighting in Agawam Park follows, with holiday songs from Southampton High School's Voices of Southampton and a fireworks display. Shop windows across the village are decorated for the season.

The village is adding an earlier event this year. Before the parade, Mayor Manger's newsletter says a ceremony will mark the 25th anniversary of the "new" police building on Windmill Lane, which also houses the Village Court. The tradition itself is older than the building. The committee was started in the mid-1950s by Jack and Nancy Rist, Artie Palma, Jack Lillywhite and Bob Keane. They held the official tree lighting at the Chamber of Commerce on the first Friday in December.

The parade is the case Trustee Roy Stevenson pointed to when he talked about the off-season. In The Southampton Press, he named SouthamptonFest, now in its 13th year, and the Parade of Lights as the events already bringing business to the village outside summer.

What the trustees want to repeat

Stevenson owns the toy store on Jobs Lane, and in the same Press article he described both sides of the year. "There is no better place to own a business or a cultural institution or museum than Southampton in July," he said, but winter has been harder. Summer pop-ups leave storefronts empty on Jobs Lane and Main Street, and he said that makes it harder for the year-round businesses next to them.

His response is the Southampton Village Partnership Committee, which replaces the Business Revitalization Committee. Dan's Papers reported in January that it was being formed. Its members include Trustees Rob Coburn and Roy Stevenson, John Betts of Shippy's, Dede Gotthelf of the Southampton Inn, and Besim Cukaj of Besim's Fine Cigars, who also sits on the Southampton Chamber of Commerce executive board.

The goals are modest, by design. "We have no illusions that Southampton in January and February is going to have the kind of activity in July and August," Stevenson told the Press. He wants fall and late spring to draw visitors on their own, with enough business that "maybe that causes a store to stay open instead of closing for the winter." One idea under study is a single website with shopping, dining, village history and a combined calendar of events at every venue. Stevenson said the cultural institutions promote their own events well, but no one source lists them all. Funding is the obstacle. It is expected to come from donations, possibly with a small fee from businesses listed on the site. The committee meets monthly, and Stevenson has asked business owners with ideas to contact him or Coburn.

The calendar above is close to the guide the committee has in mind. Its December depends on an arts center open three days a week, a museum with two holiday dates, a cinema with a full schedule and a hotel restaurant that hosts brunch events. Those are the venues Stevenson wants more fall and spring visitors to find.

Work around the village this winter

The village is also doing physical work while the streets are quiet. The mayor's fall letter lists these projects:

• Repairs and restoration of the World War I Monument, with a contractor chosen through a request for proposals.
• Brick paving on the new pedestrian easement just north of Hildreth's, lined up with the crosswalk to the Chase Bank across Main Street.
• MTA repainting of the Long Island Rail Road trestles over North Main Street and North Sea Road.
• A PSEG project bringing more power from the substation at West Prospect and North Sea Road to Water Mill, after which North Sea, Willow and North Main will be repaved at PSEG's expense.
• A new dog park on the former Southampton Press site on Windmill Lane, next to the Rogers Memorial Library, once the 6,000-square-foot office building there is demolished.
• 200 new trees this fall and spring, replacing many lost in the July 4 storm.

The mayor also keeps office hours on Tuesday mornings from 10 to 11, when residents can stop by to meet with him.

A village that keeps its storefronts and institutions open year-round holds its value differently than one that empties out after Labor Day. If you own in Southampton Village or the East End and want to know how its winter economy shows up in your property's value, Adam Levitt offers a finance-based look at your home in the context of both seasons. Request a Market Valuation.