A new free live music series will kick off on July 24 in downtown Menlo Park. Fourth Fridays will bring multiple stages of musicians and performers to the area each month.
“The concept is to have a wide variety of musical groups in our downtown area along Santa Cruz Avenue that would appeal to a broad demographic audience and help to bring people downtown and build community and create some excitement for us,” said Marnie Foody, chair of the Downtown Menlo Fund, which is hosting the event.
The inaugural Fourth Fridays, which takes place from 6 to 9 p.m., will feature longtime local “dad” cover band The Members and South Bay rock and pop cover band The Wanderers performing on the main Plaza Stage. Also on the lineup will be singer-songwriter Gaby Castro-Moroder performing in front of Mademoiselle Colette; singer and guitarist Norman Kahan in front of the old entrance to Pharmica; and saxophone and guitar music with PAX Duo in front of Cafe Vivant. Visitors can also enjoy the creations of balloon artist Steven Koehler, who will be in front of Cheeky Monkey toystore.
Fourth Fridays is the first event series presented by the Downtown Menlo Fund. The nonprofit, which formed in late 2025, is focused on revitalizing downtown Menlo Park. The group’s mission consists of three main pillars, Foody said.
“The first one is beautification: how can we make the downtown more attractive and inviting? The second is thriving businesses — how we can help support businesses to be more viable in our downtown? And then the third is community engagement. How can we pull the community together to celebrate our downtown?”
Foody noted that although the city of Menlo Park does hold some community events, they tend to be outside of the downtown core.
Fourth Fridays is patterned after longstanding music events in other communities, particularly Los Altos First Fridays, which has been bringing live music to downtown Los Altos for about 15 years with monthly events that draw the participation of local businesses.
“There’s not a lot of events that are actually downtown, and so we wanted to do events that would directly benefit the businesses. When we looked at other communities, Los Altos is a model that we very much admire. They do a First Fridays of the month, and we realize it’s a great event at so many levels,” Foody said.
To avoid competing with Los Altos and other communities for “first Friday” audiences, organizers chose the fourth Friday of the month instead.
Foody said that the response from downtown merchants has been positive. Some businesses are also planning their own events to complement Fourth Friday activities. One such spot is Gallery House, a Peninsula gallery that moved to downtown Menlo Park in 2024 after 65 years in Palo Alto. The cooperative gallery features 24 member artists who work in a variety of media, including jewelry artist Carol Garsten, who is organizing music inside the gallery featuring Los Altos singer-songwriter Corrie Dunn, who is also one half of the Song Gardeners.
Garsten, who is Gallery House’s event coordinator, knows something about community music events. She is a co-founder of Los Altos First Fridays and also organized Palo Alto’s 3rdThursday music series for two years.
“I’m working to bring the music inside of Gallery House with an event that really connects that retail business to the event by having live music, art door prizes, refreshments, and meeting the artist. So really, kind of supporting the art community, the retail art community part of downtown Menlo Park through Gallery House,” Garsten said.
Drawing community members to downtown Menlo Park merchants and restaurants is a major focus of Fourth Fridays, but it’s also aimed at simply building community and bringing people together, Foody said.
“We hope they come for the music, run into friends and family, they dance in the streets, they meet new friends, they see neighbors, they have a great time, and they spread the word when they come back next month.”
Foody encouraged community members who want to support the event and the other work of the nonprofit Downtown Menlo Fund, to donate to that work on the group’s website.
The next installments of Fourth Fridays are scheduled for Aug. 28 and Sept. 25 with bands to be announced.
The Fourth Fridays series kicks off July 24, 6-9 p.m., in downtown Menlo Park. Admission is free. For more information, visit downtownmenlo.com/fourthfridays.
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