This Friday, October 30, Guild Hall turns its building into a Halloween Silent Disco from 7 to 10 p.m. There are three DJs on three channels, everyone in glowing headphones, and costumes are welcome. Out in the garden, Louise & Howie's Coffee Cart is selling snacks and cocktails. Two nights later, the same building shows a free Mel Brooks movie. Five weeks after that, Santa lands by helicopter in Herrick Park.
Each of these dates comes from a few local partners that keep handing the village off to each other. Guild Hall works with the Greater East Hampton Chamber of Commerce. The Village works with the East Hampton Village Foundation. A restaurant group from Springs moved into one of Main Street's best-known dining rooms with a year-round plan. If you live here past Columbus Day, these partners shape your late fall.
Two Free Sundays Frame November
Guild Hall's Feel Good Films series has two screenings this month, both free and both presented with the Greater East Hampton Chamber of Commerce. Young Frankenstein plays Sunday, November 1, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Guild Hall bills it as a way to close out Halloween weekend. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles plays Sunday, November 29, the same hours, as the Thanksgiving pick.
Both films land on the Sunday night of a holiday weekend. On November 12, between the two films, the Chamber also hosts "Meet with the Mayor" at 4 p.m. at The Baker House, 18 Main Street. So the same organization runs your free movie night and your afternoon with village government in the same month.
The Show Where Your Neighbors Hang the Walls
What happens at Guild Hall between those two Sundays is its oldest community ritual. The 86th Artist Members Exhibition opens Saturday, November 7. It opens to the public Sunday, November 8, and runs through January 10, 2027.
The show started in 1938. Guild Hall calls it the oldest non-juried museum exhibition on Long Island. It hangs more than 300 works salon-style, and established artists share walls with first-time exhibitors. Artists can sell their work. Early participants included Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock. Non-juried means the art you see is the art your community submitted. For one season, the museum's main exhibition is a portrait of who is making work out here right now.
Juried or not, there is still a prize. Marcela Guerrero, DeMartini Family Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, picks this year's Top Honors and Honorable Mentions. The Top Honors winner gets a future solo show at Guild Hall. You can see how that works this season. Michael A. Butler won Top Honors in the 85th exhibition. His solo show, Somewhere in Time, runs on the same dates as the new members' show. On Monday, November 9, from 6 to 8 p.m., Butler leads an Art Social called "Painting Tinier." Guild Hall suggests bringing a magnifying glass for the smallest canvas you have ever worked on.
Good to know before you go:
- Gallery hours: Thursday to Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.
- Admission: $12, or $10 for seniors 65 and older
- Free for: members, children, students, and active military and veterans
The Rest of the Month Runs on the Same Partners
With the exhibition up, the rest of Guild Hall's November calendar builds around it. Several dates bring in other local names, including the editor of the village's own newspaper.
- Wednesdays from October 21: Nick & Toni's Wine Wednesday workshops run weekly, 5:30 to 7 p.m., at 136 North Main Street, according to 27east.
- Friday, November 6: "Harmony in Motion," a music and movement workshop with Silkroad artists Maeve Gilchrist and Kaoru Watanabe, held off-site at Mandala Yoga Center, 7 to 8:30 p.m.
- Saturday, November 7: Silkroad Up Close, with Kaoru Watanabe, Kinan Azmeh and Maeve Gilchrist, 7 to 8:30 p.m.
- Sunday, November 8: The Cultured Collector, a talk with Sarah Harrelson and Gordon VeneKlasen, noon to 1:30 p.m.
- Friday, November 13: National Theatre Live's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, with Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner, 7 to 9:30 p.m.
- Sunday, November 15: Poetry & the American Conversation. Philip Schultz and Jill Bialosky read and talk with David Rattray, editor-in-chief of The East Hampton Star, noon to 1 p.m.
- Saturday, November 21: Family Day, free, 1 to 3 p.m. It has hands-on art workshops, gallery tours led by the Teen Arts Council and performances by local student artists in the Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan Theater.
- Saturday, November 28: The Met: Live in HD, Twenty Years of the Met in Cinemas, hosted by Renée Fleming, 1 to 3:30 p.m.
Family Day happens every month, and teenagers from here give the tours while local students perform. The member artists fill the walls, and their kids fill the theater the same weekend.
One Dining Room Built to Stay Open
The off-season restaurant map has also lost some regulars this fall. Spark Hamptons reported that Highway Restaurant & Bar at 290 Montauk Highway in Wainscott served its last dinner September 7. It also reported that Herb's Market in Montauk, a grocery, deli and butcher counter open since 1963, planned to close for good at the end of September.
So it is good news that a team opened in the village this summer planning to stay open all winter. Lion's Nook Bar & Grill is at 10 Main Street in the Parrish Mews, the former home of O'Malley's and Rowdy Hall. It comes from Parioli Hospitality, the team behind Springs Tavern & Grill. 27east reported that founder Alex Rossi partnered with longtime village resident Gary Fuhrman on a year-round place for locals and seasonal visitors alike. The name honors Lion Gardiner, one of East Hampton's earliest English settlers. Rowdy Hall, for the record, did not disappear. The Star reported in 2023 that it moved to Amagansett.
The schedule has also grown since opening. Lion's Nook now lists dinner Tuesday through Sunday, 5 to 10 p.m. The East Hampton Star reported in September that happy hour runs at the bar and high tops Tuesday through Sunday, 4 to 6 p.m. Martinis are $20, draft beers $8 and house wine $14. The small-bites menu includes East Coast oysters, scallop ceviche and mini lobster tacos. Since happy hour runs on Sundays too, it fits easily before either 7 p.m. Sunday film.
December 5 Means Choosing How to Spend the Afternoon
The season peaks on Saturday, December 5. That day the Village and the East Hampton Village Foundation co-manage SantaFest, and the schedule fills the whole day:
- 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.: Holiday Market at Village Hall, 86 Main Street
- 11 a.m.: Santa arrives by helicopter at Herrick Park
- Noon: Santa Parade on Main Street and Newtown Lane
- 5 p.m.: Holiday Tree Lighting in Herrick Park, 67 Newtown Lane
Guild Hall has its own long show that afternoon: The Met's Samson et Dalila, from noon to 3:55 p.m., with Aigul Akhmetshina and Clay Hilley. The curtain goes up at the same hour the parade starts. You can still do both ends of the day, though. The opera finishes about an hour before the tree lighting, and the Holiday Market runs all morning.
When you start thinking about your next move, whether that's a downsize in the village or a winter base in Boca Raton, Irene Siconolfi would be glad to talk it through over coffee, maybe before a Sunday film at Guild Hall. Work With Irene.
