Walk down Spencer Place on a Sunday morning this month and you'll pass a restaurant row that's grown fast even by village standards. Cafe Alaia, with its double-height ceilings and exposed beams. Sapori of Scarsdale around the corner on Chase Road, where Sammy and Eddy run a Sardinian-leaning Italian kitchen. The Press, a casual spot at 35 Spencer Place from the same team behind One Rare Italian Steakhouse. And by the time this summer is fully out, Capretta, a new concept from zHospitality Group, is set to open a few doors down at 57 Spencer Place.
That's five restaurants clustered on one short stretch of village street, and the newest additions didn't land there by accident. Spencer Place is also the exact address of something the Village of Scarsdale has been building for years: the Scarsdale Farmers Market, which runs every single Sunday from May through November at Spencer Place and Chase Road. What's easy to miss, unless you're actually watching the calendar, is that this same village center is also the midpoint of a much bigger, much less reliable Sunday crowd: Bicycle Sundays, the county program that closes a stretch of the Bronx River Parkway to cars. Compare the two schedules and you'll find the newest restaurants aren't built around the cyclists at all. They're built around the market, and the numbers explain why that's the safer bet.
What's Actually on Spencer Place Now
One Rare Italian Steakhouse has been the anchor of this stretch since it opened in the former Zachys Wine & Liquor space on East Parkway, where chef Admir Alibasic dry-ages steaks in house for at least 30 days and the restaurant has since picked up a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. That's an established name a block over. What's new is everything built since, and it's clustered on Spencer Place specifically, not East Parkway where One Rare already draws a crowd.
The Press, at 35 Spencer Place, comes from the same ownership group as One Rare but skips the steakhouse formality for a faster, more casual menu. Capretta, arriving at 57 Spencer Place this summer, is zHospitality Group's newest concept, and it's going into a building on the market's own block rather than anywhere else in the village. Add in Cafe Alaia, run by chef Camillo Bassani and owner Vincenzo Alaia, and Sapori of Scarsdale on Chase Road, and you have five restaurants inside a two-block radius, all of them positioned to catch the same weekly foot traffic.
The Village's Own Sunday Program
None of this happened by accident. The Village of Scarsdale and the Scarsdale Business Alliance run a joint program called Destination Scarsdale, which turns the farmers market into a weekly draw rather than a once-a-month event. Every Sunday from May through November, the market runs 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Spencer Place at Chase Road, and the Village schedules themed activations alongside it, plus live music and, on opening day each May, a ribbon-cutting with elected officials.
The Village also makes Sunday parking free and clears the street: public parking is prohibited in the market area from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. so vendors can set up and break down, and visitors are directed instead to the Christie Place Garage at 64 East Parkway, with restrooms available near the garage's East Parkway entrance. That's a fair amount of municipal coordination for what looks, from the outside, like a simple farmers market. It's really the Village underwriting a specific kind of Sunday foot traffic, one that starts at 8:30 in the morning and holds until 1:30 in the afternoon, every week, for six months.
A Second Crowd That Doesn't Show Up the Same Way
The other big Sunday draw in this part of Westchester is Bicycle Sundays, the county program that's closed a stretch of the Bronx River Parkway to cars since 1974. Westchester County Parks runs it with the Westchester Parks Foundation, backed by NewYork-Presbyterian Westchester, Con Edison, and Danny's Cycles as the official bicycle sponsor. On the days it runs, a 6.5-mile stretch of parkway between the Westchester County Center in White Plains and Scarsdale Road in Yonkers opens to bikes, joggers, walkers, and skaters, and the Village's own materials describe Scarsdale's Village Center as the halfway point on that route, the natural place for cyclists to stop, refuel, and turn around.
That sounds like it should line up perfectly with the farmers market. It doesn't, and the gap is bigger than most residents realize.
| Month | Farmers Market Sundays | Bicycle Sundays |
|---|---|---|
| May 2026 | Every Sunday | May 3, 10, 17, 31 |
| June 2026 | Every Sunday | June 7, 14, 21, 28 (ends at noon) |
| July 2026 | Every Sunday | July 12, 26 only |
| August 2026 | Every Sunday | None |
| September 2026 | Every Sunday | Sept 13, 20, 27 |
| October 2026 | Every Sunday | Oct 4 only |
The market never skips a week. Bicycle Sundays does, constantly. May loses one Sunday out of five. July runs on only two of its four Sundays. August goes dark entirely, no closed parkway, no cyclist rest stop, for the whole month. Even on the Sundays both programs overlap, the hours don't fully match: in June and July, Bicycle Sundays ends at noon, an hour before the farmers market wraps and well before a restaurant would expect a lunch crowd to turn over.
Why That Math Favors the Market, Not the Bikes
Put those two calendars next to each other and the restaurant math gets simple. A concept built around cyclist traffic gets a partial, unpredictable audience: gone by noon on the days it shows up at all, absent completely for a full month in the middle of the season. A concept built around the farmers market gets the same crowd, at the same address, every single Sunday from May through November, for a five-hour window that runs straight into a normal lunch seating.
That's the read The Press and Capretta appear to have made. Neither opened on East Parkway, where One Rare already anchors a dinner crowd. Both went to Spencer Place, the exact block where the market sets up every week without exception. Cafe Alaia and Sapori of Scarsdale, already established nearby, get the same benefit. The cyclists are a bonus on the fourteen Sundays the county actually scheduled this year. The market is the actual foundation, because it's the one crowd on this block that never takes a week off.
For a resident, that distinction is useful right now, not just in theory. Three overlap Sundays are left on the 2026 calendar: September 13, September 20, and September 27, plus one final date on October 4 before Bicycle Sundays wraps for the year. After that October date, the parkway reopens to cars for good this season, but the farmers market keeps running every Sunday through November. If you want the fuller version of a Scarsdale Sunday, market stalls, a full sidewalk, and cyclists stopping in for lunch, those four dates are what's left. If you'd rather have an easier parking spot and a quieter walk, wait for a Sunday after October 4.
A few practical notes for anyone building a Sunday around this stretch of the village:
- Park at Christie Place Garage (64 East Parkway) on Sundays; street parking near the market is closed to the public from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. for vendor access.
- The market runs 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., every Sunday, May through November, rain or shine unless the Village announces otherwise.
- Bicycle Sundays is genuinely intermittent. Check the specific date before assuming the parkway will be closed, since some Sundays in every month except June run on a partial schedule or not at all.
- If you're timing a restaurant visit around the market crowd rather than the bike crowd, any Sunday works. If you want both crowds at once, the overlap Sundays in the table above are the ones to pick.
None of this changes what Scarsdale has always been on a Sunday morning: a farmers market, a walkable village center, a reason to be outside. What's changed is who's building around it. The Village built the parking and the programming. Two separate restaurant groups, working independently, each chose Spencer Place for their newest concept. Both landed on the same crowd, and the calendar shows exactly why.
If you're weighing what it's like to actually live with this rhythm week to week, not just visit it, Chris Tulotta can walk you through what different pockets of Scarsdale look and feel like day to day. Let's Connect.
