Tait Avenue to the La Cañada Corner: Los Gatos Does October in Its Oldest Buildings

For one night, Tait Avenue stops being a through street. From West Main Street to Los Gatos-Saratoga Road, it closes to traffic, and every house along it becomes part of the decorations. Trick-or-treaters arrive well before sunset, which is unusual for Halloween in most neighborhoods. This year Halloween falls on a Saturday, and the street sits inside the Almond Grove Historic District, where the block begins at West Main Street.

Much of what is happening in Los Gatos this month happens in old rooms. The newest restaurants downtown moved into the oldest buildings, and the Halloween traditions gather around the historic blocks. Following the month from Tait Avenue to the corner of West Main and North Santa Cruz makes that easy to see.

A street that closes for one night

The Almond Grove tradition runs on the households themselves. Los Gatan's coverage of Halloween 2025 described the decorations building across the whole month of October, with porches, lawns and even roofs dressed up. It named a 10-foot skeleton on top of Soda Works and a green witch and floating skeleton on Tait Avenue. It also described the Los Gatos Boulevard scenes, including an inflatable character mounted on the second story of an apartment complex.

The tone is set by the people on the street. They told NBC Bay Area last year that they aim for decorations that are

"captivating but not scary"

so that young kids can enjoy the atmosphere, especially on their first candy-collecting Halloween. Past Los Gatan coverage recalls a three-foot spider dropping from a tree and a driveway turned into a dance floor playing "Thriller."

The Town had not posted 2026 closure details for Tait Avenue at the time of writing, so the pattern here comes from past years. The Town of Los Gatos posts its notices at losgatosca.gov, and that is the place to confirm before you plan around a closed street.

The Chamber takes over the other end of town

Tait Avenue begins at West Main Street. The same street meets North Santa Cruz Avenue at Town Plaza Park, where the Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce stages the Halloween Kid and Pet PAWlooza. It works differently from Tait Avenue. Families and pets in costume check in at the park, then trick-or-treat with downtown merchants. Every purchase is a direct donation to the Street Dog Coalition, and the Chamber holds the event with Roxy Laufer as co-sponsor.

The event lands on a Sunday near the end of the month. It ran on October 27 in 2024 and October 26 in 2025. In 2025, general admission was listed at $12.51 and covered up to two kids per family. Wristbands were handed out at check-in. The 2026 date and price were not posted where I could find them, so the Chamber's event calendar is the source to trust.

So Halloween in Los Gatos has two organizers. On Tait Avenue, the households run it. In the downtown core, the Chamber runs it as a ticketed fundraiser for a dog-focused nonprofit, using the plaza and the merchants around it.

The corner building that sat empty for seven years

The plaza and the street both point toward the same intersection. At West Main Street and North Santa Cruz Avenue stands the La Cañada Building, the Queen Anne corner with the round bay and "witch's hat" tower that the Chamber puts on its logo and on the cover of its 2026-27 destination guide.

Sake Hofstra built it in 1895 and called it the Hofstra Block. Later owners renamed it La Cañada after 1912. The Farwell and Bacigalupi families restored it after it was badly damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake. It became Mountain Charley's saloon in 1972, and its second story later housed the popular nightclub Los Gatos Bar & Grill, known as LGBG. Then that floor sat vacant for seven years.

It reopened to the public on October 10, 2025 as Heritage Pub & Chop House, so its first anniversary falls on Saturday, October 10, this month. The owners, Walker and Kristi Pearce-Percy, both grew up in Los Gatos. Their remodel began in August 2024 and ran for more than a year. Executive Chef Yvonne Khananis, who also owns Polenteria on the floor below, built a menu of Irish, English and Scottish pub classics alongside an American chophouse list. Happy hour runs daily from 3 to 6 PM.

The room is also a record of the block. The owners planned to hang old photographs honoring places that no longer exist, including Steamer's and CB Hannegan's, along with the businesses that once filled this very space, LGBG and Alligator Grill. A restaurant that opened a year ago spends its wall space remembering the ones that came before it.

Two new rooms with the same funeral parlor history

Gardenia Los Gatos, another downtown arrival, serves brunch and dinner in a Victorian building downtown, with a coffeehouse that opens daily at 8:30 AM. According to Los Gatan, Gardenia and Heritage share a curious detail. Both occupy properties once used by the same family-owned funeral parlor. Two of the newer names on the downtown dining scene are housed in old buildings with long histories.

That is the pattern in miniature. A new business opens downtown, and it opens in a structure that predates most of the people walking past it. For a month built around porches, plaza gatherings and historic facades, the setting fits.

October at a glance

What is different downtown this month

Two changes at the Town level affect how the month works on the ground. The first is a downtown parking utilization study. The Town says the data collection runs through October 15 and will inform parking management and future downtown planning.

The second is a sign change. New permit-parking signs have extended the Downtown Employee Parking Permit restrictions to Saturdays in Lots 1 through 6, the Park Avenue Lot, the Montebello Lot and the Southside Lot. The Town describes the goal as reducing congestion for visitors and for local businesses and their employees, especially during weekend events. With Halloween landing on a Saturday, it is worth reading the signs in whichever lot you choose before you leave the car.

There is one gap in the usual calendar. The bandstand area of Oak Meadow Park has been closed for improvements since July 6 and is due to stay closed through mid-October. The Town's notice lists the work as improvements, with the area due to reopen once they finish.

Sunday, in order

Sundays give the month its steady rhythm. The first one, October 4, is a Free First Sunday at NUMU, the New Museum Los Gatos on East Main Street, with free general admission and tours from 10 AM to 4 PM. The museum's fall calendar also includes an exhibition called Community Ignition and a Spooky Papier-Mâché Mask Workshop, so check the museum's calendar for the dates.

The Los Gatos Farmers' Market fills Town Park Plaza every Sunday from 9 AM to 1 PM. It has run year-round and rain or shine, with more than 40 farmers and food producers. That puts the same plaza that hosts the PAWlooza to weekly use.

If the Almond Grove blocks and the La Cañada corner have you wondering what a historic-district property near downtown would sell for today, Yore & Van Zant can put a number on it. Request a free market analysis and the team will walk through it with you.