Happy Thursday, Buncombe County!

💡 Buncombe Fact: The French Broad is one of the few major rivers in the country that runs north. It starts down in Transylvania County, picks up the Swannanoa right here in Asheville, and then keeps heading for Tennessee instead of the coast.

In today’s edition:

Let’s get to it.

— Sean Kolina

Pack Square belongs to everyone for three days this weekend, and it costs nothing! Boomtown Arts & Heritage FestAVL is in its third year, built around the stretch when Asheville boomed and then abruptly stopped, the accident of history that left all that 1920s architecture standing downtown. This year brings more than thirty artists across three stages, plus heritage exhibits, hands-on workshops, and walking tours that gather at the Asheville Art Museum before heading out.

Sunday night is the one to plan around. Symphony in the Park puts the Asheville Symphony outdoors at 7pm with Darko Butorac conducting and vocalist Erica Gabriel, and it is free to walk up. The paid reserved seats are already gone, so bring a blanket or a folding chair and get there early. A few other practical notes, since about 32,000 people came last year: streets around the park will be closed, so aim for the College Avenue or Rankin Avenue garage, and everything on site is credit card only.

📍 Where: Pack Square Park, 80 Court Plaza, Asheville
📅 When: Friday, September 4th – Sunday, September 6th | Symphony in the Park Sunday 7pm
💲 Price: Free | Free RSVP encouraged

Festival Details

The Montford Park Players open their run of Romeo and Juliet on Friday, directed by Kristi DeVille, and it runs Fridays through Sundays into late September. Outdoor Shakespeare at the Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre has been an Asheville habit for more than fifty years and it has never charged admission, which is the part worth repeating. Seats are pay what you can, you can bring your own chair, and outside food and drinks are welcome, so a picnic and a bottle of wine is the standard move.

📍 Where: Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre, 92 Gay St., Asheville
📅 When: Opening Friday, September 4th | 7:30pm, Fridays through Sundays through September 26th
💲 Price: Free | Donations welcome

Season Details

Songwriters trade turns in a circle and explain where the songs came from, which is a different night out than watching a band work through a set. White Horse Black Mountain puts artist in residence Lillie Syracuse alongside Amanda Anne Platt of The Honeycutters, with Matt Smith backing both of them, and the venue is promising a surprise guest. Doors are on Montreat Road, a short walk from State Street if you want dinner first.

📍 Where: White Horse Black Mountain, 105 Montreat Rd., Black Mountain
📅 When: Friday, September 4th | 7:30pm – 9:30pm
💲 Price: Pay what you can | $25 suggested

Get Tickets

The Tourists wrap up their home stand against the Greensboro Grasshoppers with games tonight through Sunday, which is about as easy as a long weekend plan gets. HomeTrust Park sits in a bowl below Biltmore Avenue with the outfield wall running up a hillside, and the renovations finished before opening day this spring. Sunday is the one to bring kids to.

📍 Where: HomeTrust Park, 30 Buchanan Pl., Asheville
📅 When: Thursday, September 3rd – Sunday, September 6th

Schedule and Tickets

The Swannanoa Market sets up on Whitson Avenue Saturday morning with seasonal produce, handmade goods, and a lot of vendors who are only a season or two old. It began in February 2025 as a neighbor run answer to what Helene took out, when Swannanoa had nowhere reliable to buy fresh food, and it has grown into a full seasonal roster since. The Resilience Hub runs a community funded token program so neighbors using SNAP and EBT can shop, which is a small thing that says a lot about how the place is run. Come early for the produce, and the slider bar a block up on Whitson turns it into a whole morning.

📍 Where: The Hub, 216 Whitson Ave., Swannanoa
📅 When: Saturday, September 5th | 10am – 1pm
💲 Price: Free

Market Details

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Everyone else settled for the same flimsy patio cover. This one is built to last.

Find Your Pergola Now

Buncombe is a lot bigger than downtown, so this is where the rest of it lives.

🌳 Whitson Avenue in Swannanoa has a new gathering spot. Daymakers Slider Bar opened at 204 Whitson Ave. in Beacon Village, serving chef driven sliders, wings and salads six days a week and closed Tuesdays. It sits a block from The Hub, so you can pair it with the market on Saturday. Menu and hours

🌳 Taylor’s Wave is nearly finished. The whitewater wave Woodfin has been building into the French Broad since 2024 completed its first phase in April, and the town’s published timeline has the whole project done by the end of September. If it works the way the engineers expect, kayakers and surfers will be lining up for the same wave. Project details

🌳 The county is designing an indoor rec center. Commissioners approved a design contract on August 18 for a first of its kind county facility near Sand Hill School Road and Apac Drive, with basketball and volleyball courts, locker rooms and meeting space. Read more

A quick one every Thursday. Our full small business features run on Tuesdays, so think of this as the short version, and it is never paid and never sponsored.

It started in 1998 as a co-op that opened one day a week. Susan Bost and Annie Louise and Isaiah Perkinson wanted somewhere in Fairview to buy fresh, local and organic food without driving into town, and that one day a week eventually became a full market and deli carrying goods from more than a hundred regional makers and farms.

Laura Telford took it over in 2018, and the detail worth knowing is the coffee. She also owns Round Earth Roasters, so the espresso bar at the front is pouring beans she roasts herself. Sandwiches are made to order, the bakery is in house, and the place has stayed small on purpose.

Read Their Story

📣 Know a business that belongs here? Hit reply with a name and we’ll check them out!

😋 Weekly Appalachian inspired recipe: Fried Apple Pies — half moons of dough folded around spiced apples and cooked in a skillet instead of an oven, from back when most mountain kitchens did not have one.

🎵 Who we are listening to: The Paper Kites - Bloom — “This song is every sunset I've ever danced in, everyone I've ever loved, every time my bare feet touched blades of grass, every night I've fallen asleep smiling. It tugs at my chest and pulls me towards joyful memories and the promise of tomorrow. Thanks, paper kites.”

💛 Local Nonprofits. Asheville Humane Society — the 501(c)(3) that has run Buncombe County’s only open admission animal shelter since 1984, which is the part that matters: nothing gets turned away at the door.

🙏 Positive News Around the Globe: X-rays finally cracked the narwhal’s spiral tusk, which turns out to be two spirals running in opposite directions, one nested inside the other. Read Article

✨ A symphony, a play, and three days of music, and not one of them charges at the door. Somebody had to decide it should work that way.

🗳️ One quick question, and it genuinely shapes what goes in here:

As always, we read every reply and truly appreciate hearing from you. If there’s something you’d like to see more of locally, let us know. Thanks for being part of the Buncombe County Digest community.

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