If you have lived in Coopersburg for more than a few years, you can probably remember when a Sunday here meant one thing: breakfast at the Coopersburg Diner, then whatever you had planned in Bethlehem or Quakertown. The borough was a starting point, not the destination. That has changed in the last eighteen months, and it happened without a ribbon-cutting or a press release announcing it. Three restaurants opened along Third Street, a farmers market settled into its rhythm at 5 N. Main, and a winery ten minutes east figured out that goats are, in fact, the missing ingredient at most tastings.
The result is a compact Sunday circuit that begins at the market at ten and can carry you into the late afternoon without ever leaving the 18036 ZIP. This is the layout, in the order most residents seem to be running it.
The Sunday spine, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Coopersburg Farmers Market runs every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., May 17 through November 1, 2026, at 5 N. Main Street next to Borough Hall at the intersection of State and Main. It is run by Debra Paschall and her daughter Samantha De Vico, and if you have not been in a few weeks the vendor lineup is worth reintroducing yourself to. Regulars include Dreamland Farmstead for organic vegetables and eggs, Hausman Fruit Farm for seasonal fruits and pastries, Fork'd Pierogies, Polk Valley Farm for fresh dairy, R&B Apiaries for raw honey, Schantzenbach Farms for pork and beef, Let's Go Coffee Company, and The Original Tea Co. & Patisserie. There is a practical detail worth knowing: restrooms are inside Borough Hall, and parking is on Main Street or the side streets. There is no dedicated lot.
Here is the loop most residents seem to have converged on:
- Arrive at the market between 10 and 10:30 to beat the Hausman line and still find flowers.
- Walk south three blocks to Third Street for lunch.
- Decide between Living Memorial Community Park or a drive out to Wind Hill Farms for the afternoon.
- Home by four, or dinner at Good Jakes if you skipped the market breakfast trucks.
The reason this loop works now, and did not two summers ago, is that the middle step used to be the weak link. Third Street had the Diner and it had Ecco Domani, and that was roughly the map. It is a different street today.
What actually opened on Third Street
La Cocina de la Abuela, a family-run restaurant offering authentic Mexican cuisine, opened at 127 S. Third St. in Coopersburg. The space previously housed Now That's Italian Specialty Market & Deli. La Cocina de la Abuela, which means grandma's kitchen in Spanish, is operated by Octavio Nunez Zavaleta and Maria Cerezo, serving 100% authentic Mexican food, including carnitas, tamales and tortas. The eatery serves up dishes featuring made-on-site tortillas and salsa. Hours are worth memorizing before you make the walk, because the schedule has two dark days that catch people out: the restaurant is open for lunch and dinner, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, closed on Sundays and Wednesdays. If you are on the Sunday loop, this is a weekday lunch, not a market-day one.
Two blocks north, The New Santiago's Restaurant on Route 309 in Coopersburg has orders up again and reunions with familiar faces back. A fast-moving storm damaged the restaurant in March, forcing it to temporarily close, and workers welcomed customers as the doors reopened four months after temporarily closing. It sits at 125 N. Third St., essentially across Route 309 from La Cocina de la Abuela. Two independent restaurants, two doors of a highway apart, both serving something you could not get on the same block in early 2024.
Round it out with the two other 2025 arrivals worth naming. Coopersburg Bagels & Deli drew steady early crowds after its opening, and S. Main Street Market brought a hybrid concept to the borough that combines groceries, gift retail, and a game room under one roof. Add the returning anchors, and the corridor now reads as a real strip: Good Jakes Restaurant sits behind the Coopersburg Fire Company Social Club and is open Tuesday through Saturday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; the Coopersburg Diner keeps its post at 336 N. 3rd St.; and Ecco Domani continues to draw diners from well outside the borough. Five distinct dinner options inside a walkable mile is not a big-city number, but for Coopersburg it is a genuine shift.
Wind Hill, and the case for the goats
A short drive from the borough sits the afternoon anchor that most out-of-town visitors miss. Most wine tastings are missing a crucial element that could make them infinitely better. That element is goats, and Wind Hill Farms in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania has figured this out in a way that makes you wonder why every winery doesn't have a petting zoo attached. The combination sounds like a novelty until you have taken guests there once. It becomes the default answer to "what are we doing this afternoon" from May through October.
If Wind Hill is not the plan, Living Memorial Community Park at East Fairmount and Route 309 is the standing alternative, and it becomes the focus of the fall calendar starting in September.
The calendar between now and the tree lighting
The borough's 2026 event calendar is public and worth screenshotting. Here is the run from late summer through the end of the year, with dates and locations residents actually need:
| Date | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 19 | Coopersburg Community Day, 34th year, Sat, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. | Southern Lehigh Living Memorial Park |
| Oct 3 | Fall Festival Coopersburg, 10 a.m.–3 p.m. | Living Memorial Community Park, 211 E. Fairmount St. |
| Oct 11 | Coopersburg Halloween Parade, 3:00–4:30 p.m. | Borough streets |
| Oct 30 | Trick-or-Treat, 6:00–8:00 p.m. | Borough-wide |
| Nov 1 | Farmers Market season closing Sunday | 5 N. Main St. |
| Nov 28 | Coopersburg Tree Lighting, 6:00–8:00 p.m. | Borough Hall |
Community Day is the anchor of the fall, and it has grown into something worth planning around rather than dropping into. The event brings live music, 60+ nonprofits, 75+ craft vendors, food trucks, kids' activities, and a classic car show to Southern Lehigh Living Memorial Park. Admission and parking are free. There is a shopping angle most residents overlook: participating businesses offer 10% off any purchase at their establishment on the weekend of Community Day, September 19-20, 2026. If you have been eyeing something at Madle's Hardware or Link's Beverage, that is the weekend.
The origin story of Community Day is quietly one of the more Coopersburg things about Coopersburg. In 1991, Evelyn Borger and Sandy Gutshall envisioned a new annual gathering, inspired by a beloved community picnic held in 1979 to celebrate the Coopersburg Centennial. Evelyn approached Ken Mohr, Jr., and asked him to make it real. Her direction was memorable: not carnival-like. That two-word brief has quietly shaped everything about Community Day ever since. Thirty-four years of programming from a two-word design spec is not a bad track record.
One footnote for the food-focused: the 2026 Southern Lehigh Restaurant Week ran Sunday, April 12th through Saturday, April 18th, with local restaurants across Upper Saucon Township, Coopersburg Borough, and Lower Milford Township featuring prix-fixe menus and special deals. Watch the Southern Lehigh Chamber of Commerce for the 2027 dates. It is the one week each year when Ecco Domani, Good Jakes, and the newer Third Street openings all put out set menus in the same window.
One quiet observation about the corridor
Here is the thing worth sitting with. The four openings and one reopening between late 2024 and mid-2026 did not land on Main Street, where the market is. They landed on the Route 309 stretch of Third Street, north and south of the light. That is a small piece of geography, but it changes how the borough works on a Sunday. The market anchors the north-Main pedestrian moment, and Third Street now anchors the meal that follows. Two poles, four blocks apart, doing different jobs.
For anyone tracking the borough with any interest in property, that pattern matters more than any single opening. Retail energy that concentrates on a highway corridor tends to reinforce the value of the residential blocks that feed it on foot. The homes tucked along South Main, East Fairmount, and the numbered side streets sit inside that walkable ring. It is a smaller version of what has been happening in downtown Emmaus and in the Broad Street stretch of Bethlehem, at a scale that suits a borough of Coopersburg's size.
Nothing about this is a call to buy or sell. It is a call to notice that the weekend map has been redrawn, and that residents who have been running the same Sunday for a decade should probably try the loop.
If you are thinking about the house behind the Sunday, or wondering what Coopersburg's shifting Third Street corridor means for your address specifically, Creighton Faust is happy to walk the block with you and give you an honest read on the market. Request a complimentary market valuation. Call Creighton today.
