Oktoberfest Moves Up Castro Again: What's Shifting in Downtown Mountain View This Fall

According to the Mountain View Voice, Peter Katz, president and CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, says this year's Oktoberfest layout is meant to "welcome more patrons" and "provide better flow between attractions." To make that happen, the festival is taking more of Castro Street on October 10 and 11. But the extra space isn't on the three car-free blocks the city has spent six years turning into a pedestrian mall. The festival is growing south of them, while the mall itself still runs on bollards and railings, and its permanent fixes are now dated 2028.

Downtown's busiest weekend of the fall and its official car-free zone sit on different stretches of the same street. That split explains most of what's changing on Castro this season.

How the festival walked down Castro

Oktoberfest has been moving for more than a decade, and every move has been toward more room:

1. 2013: The Chamber partnered with Steins Beer Garden and held the first event in Parking Lot No. 2.
2. 2016: It expanded onto Bryant Street between Villa and Dana, plus Dana Street between Wild Cherry Lane and Bryant.
3. 2020 to 2022: The event was paused during the pandemic.
4. 2024: It was still centered on the intersection of Bryant and Dana.
5. 2025: It moved onto Castro Street between Church and Mercy for the 10th annual event.
6. 2026: The footprint now runs along Castro from Mercy Street to Yosemite Avenue and adds Church Street from 40 yards before Franklin to 20 yards before Hope. The Chamber also asked to use parts of Pioneer Memorial Park.

The festival's own About page still calls the Church-to-Mercy layout "new this year." That text was written for 2025. What's actually new for 2026 is the upper 500 block of Castro up to Yosemite, which closes along with the lower stretch toward Mercy.

The pieces are being rearranged too. Food trucks move out of the parking lot to the intersection of Church and Castro. Vendor booths move from lower Castro to the upper section. The beer booths, ticket booths and kid zone stay in the parking lot area, and the large tent and stage stay on Castro where they were last year. The City Council unanimously approved the event permit, the sound amplification permit and the street closures on June 23.

What the weekend actually looks like

The festival runs Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Chamber's notice to the city proposed closing Castro between Mercy and Yosemite from 2:30 a.m. Saturday, October 10, through 10 p.m. Sunday, October 11. If you drive through that stretch, plan around both nights, not just festival hours.

On the official schedule, Deutscher MusikVerein, the SF German Band, plays from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and BlowMusik! takes the stage from 3:30 to 7 p.m. Contests run all afternoon: kids' pretzel eating at 12:15, yodeling at 1:15 and 6:15, stein holding at 2:15 and 5:15, costumes at 3:45, beer belly at 4:15, and best chicken dancer at 6:30.

The car-free blocks are still a temporary setup

North of all this, the city closed Castro from California Street to West Evelyn Avenue in 2020 to make room for outdoor dining. The council formally made that stretch a pedestrian mall by ordinance on October 25, 2022. Today it still runs on an interim setup of bollards and railings, and the city describes the permanent design as a multi-year process.

The everyday gap is at the cross streets. Someone walking down the middle of Castro has to move over to the sidewalk to cross at Villa and at Dana. On March 10, the council approved a design for 21-foot-wide central crosswalks at both intersections, along with new signals and pedestrian push buttons, at an estimated cost of about $3.5 million. Plans for the California Street roundabout were pushed to a second phase in October 2024 because of funding constraints.

The timeline has stretched since spring. In March, the staff report expected final designs this fall and construction early next year. The city's September 2026 project dashboard shows the Villa and Dana work at 65% design, with completion set for fall 2028.

At the north end, by the Caltrain tracks, a separate project is on a similar schedule:

Southbound cars have been blocked at the tracks since 2020. The Evelyn design, approved February 10, also stops northbound cars from crossing and sends them west on Evelyn toward Shoreline. It adds bike lanes on both sides of Evelyn from Wild Cherry Lane to Hope Street, which removes 12 parking spaces. It also adds better sidewalks between the transit center and downtown, plus a separated southbound bike lane on Moffett. A September 2025 count found 1,785 people walking or biking across that crossing in a single 24-hour period.

The plan is a scaled-back version of the original. The 2017 master plan called for undercrossings beneath the tracks, but by 2023 the cost estimate for the grade separation had reached $271 million, nearly double the earlier $136 million figure. The council shifted that funding focus to Rengstorff instead.

So a festival that needs a 200-foot tent, a stage and room for crowds is growing on blocks where none of this construction is scheduled.

The mall blocks are filling in anyway

The temporary setup hasn't slowed the storefronts. Several of this summer's openings are on Castro's car-free blocks or just off them:

• Makkee Dessert, 134 Castro St. This traditional Chinese dessert shop held its grand opening in early July and drew long lines.
• 25 West Gallery, 384 Castro St. The gallery opened with a reception on August 7 and is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.
• Ry's Poke Shack, inside Ava's Downtown Market at 340 Castro St. Its Bay Area debut was September 3, with a grand opening set for September 25. It's open daily, 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Yakiniku Ginza, 475 Castro St. This A5 wagyu spot debuted in May and was still in soft opening in early August. Hours are daily, 5 to 10 p.m.

Two more are on the way. Tong Sui, at 747 W. Dana St., was reported in mid-September as planning to open this October. We haven't seen confirmation that it has opened yet. Maruwu Seicha is planned for 236 Castro St. in June 2027. A project at that same address may temporarily take 13 spaces in downtown Lot 2: five for 31 consecutive weeks and eight for 12 non-consecutive days, with the closures scheduled before May 25, 2029.

Downtown also lost two long-running places this year. Chez TJ, the restaurant in a Victorian house, closed in April after 40 years, and its owner said he planned to sell or lease the property. In March, Next Level Board Game Café at Villa and Bryant held its last Thursday-evening meetup.

The rest of the fall calendar

After Oktoberfest, the downtown and city calendar spreads out across town:

The tree lighting is at Civic Center Plaza on Castro's 500 block, the same block where Oktoberfest's footprint expands this year. The farmers market is at the Evelyn end, next to the crossing that will close to cars by spring 2028.

If you own a home near Castro and want to know how these 2027 and 2028 projects factor into its value, The Palacios Group can walk you through it block by block. Get your free home valuation and work with our team.