What’s Happening in the South: October/November 2026

Florida

“As a designer, I’ve worked with Schuma-cher for decades,” says Celerie Kemble, the interior decorator and author known for her work in Palm Beach and elsewhere. “It’s one of the most versatile and prolifically creative resources.” This past summer Kemble teamed up with the company, founded by Parisian textile entrepreneur Frederic Schumacher in New York in 1889, to design its splashy new showroom in West Palm Beach. The company has been opening a swath of stores throughout the South, including in Charleston, South Carolina; Richmond; and, this fall, Jacksonville, Florida. In West Palm Beach, the 6,000-square-foot space showcases more than 7,000 Schumacher wallpapers and fabrics, alongside patterns from partner brands like Backdrop and Patterson Flynn. While some of the showroom is set aside for interior designers, it also features a luxury shop that’s open to everyone, with an array of accessories—antiques, pillows, throws, baskets—plus a full calendar of educational events open for sign-up. “It’s more like an artist’s loft. It doesn’t feel like a corporate headquarters,” Kemble says. “I’m so excited that they’re opening a showroom in my hometown. People do brave things with design here, and it’s nice to have resources so close to where they live.”

schumacher.com

Georgia

When Chelsea Fishman couldn’t find a bar or restaurant in Atlanta where TVs consistently showed women’s sports, she created one. After two years of pop-ups around town and a residency at Pullman Yards, the lifelong soccer player (in elementary school, college, and now a recreation league) recently opened Jolene Jolene, the city’s first female-sports-focused bar. She said the energy surrounding past women’s World Cup matches catalyzed her. “I felt this power there, with people coming together around women’s sports,” she says, “and I wanted to share that feeling in my own spot.” Amid a bounty of streamed sporting events—from volleyball and basketball to gymnastics—on ten massive TVs, fans feast on Mia Hamm & Cheese sandwiches and “girl dinner” boards (premium meats and cheeses alongside candy and Cheez-Its) and sip on Dreamsicle margaritas. A grinning Dolly Parton mural nods to the bar’s name, but a serious goal underpins the fun: “I want everyone, athlete or not, from casual to avid fan, to feel at home,” Fishman says. “Women’s sports are for everyone; this place is for everyone.”

jolenejoleneatl.com

Kentucky

Illustration: Tim Bower

The Breeders’ Cup World Championships return to Keeneland in Lexington October 30–31, bringing Thoroughbred racing’s premier international event back to its birthplace. In the early 1980s, Lexington horseman John Gaines proposed a global championship showcasing the world’s top racehorses. The inaugural Breeders’ Cup was held at California’s Hollywood Park in 1984, and Lexington first hosted it in 2015. Keeneland again welcomed the event in 2020 and 2022. “When the Breeders’ Cup comes to Lexington, it truly feels like a homecoming,” says Drew Fleming, president and CEO of Breeders’ Cup Limited. This year’s championship features fourteen Grade 1 races over two days of racing, with more than $34 million in purses and awards. Guests will also appreciate Keeneland’s new amenities, including a reconfigured saddling paddock, expanded Stakes Winner’s Circle, and the $100 million–plus Paddock Building, which includes a popular rooftop terrace. Bonus for visitors: The Keeneland Championship Sale takes place October 28, followed by the November Breeding Stock Sale. “There are very few places where championship racing and the global Thoroughbred marketplace come together at this level,” says Keeneland president and CEO Shannon Arvin. “We are proud that Keeneland and central Kentucky serve as that gathering place.”

keeneland.com

Louisiana

Illustration: Tim Bower

Leave it to South Louisianans to find a new way to celebrate one of their deepest cultural traditions. Since the late 1700s, red beans and rice has been a “laundry day” meal around New Orleans: Folks toss the leftover ham hock from Sunday’s supper into a pot of beans and let it simmer on the stove all day. A new route and map help road-trippers connect to that history and spice up their travels with detour-worthyiterations of the meal. The Camellia RedBeans & Rice Trail, a project of the 1923-founded Camellia Beans brand, spotlights all sorts of places, from gas stations to diners to convenience stores.

Toya Boudy, a New Orleans native, chef, and author of the recent cookbook Cooking from Scratch, selected each stop, setting out this summer to find the best spots to savor the meal she grew up with and loved. Her definition of a tasty version: beans that have a “good, soft bite, not too runny,” served with “loose rice without clumps.” (She’s doesn’t mind sticky rice if the beans are a bit runny—“but the flavors gotta be slamming!”) And she acknowledges that the dish is about more than flavor. “Red beans can house some of our most tender family memories, so I get if someone wants to keep it simple.”

The trail begins at Beanlandia, the New Orleans headquarters of a nonprofit krewe dedicated to all things red beans. It includes a cluster of spots in and around the city, the dish’s ancestral home, then strikes west toward Baton Rouge, Thibodaux, and points beyond. Twenty destinations will be served up this first year, but Boudy will stay hungry—she plans to select eight to ten additional stops each year.

redbeansandricetrail.com; bookshop.org

Maryland

Dating to 1706, the charming colonial port town of Chestertown has long welcomed historic ships and, more recently, their replicas—schooners, yachts, and skipjacks (a Chesapeake Bay oystering boat)—along the Chester River. “Walking the docks at night and seeing the tall ships lit up against the water never gets old,” says Chestertown mayor Meghan Efland, adding that at the country’s largest annual public sailing event, Sultana Downrigging (October 30–November 1), “visitors can step aboard the vessels, talk with the crews, enjoy outstanding music, and experience the warmth of our community.” The resident Sultana replicates an eighteenth-century British schooner, and programming through the Sultana Education Foundation focuses on Chesapeake Bay history and conservation. Onshore, tap along to bluegrass and Americana rhythms at the music village, join the Halloween costume contest, or just stroll the cornucopia of restored historic houses like a captain returning home from sea.

downrigging.org

Mississippi

From Michelin-recognized establishments to drugstore diners, Jackson has no shortage of good-eats institutions, and several newcomers to the scene are worth a taste. For happy hour, chef Derek Emerson’s cocktail bar Little Effie heralds the talents of longtime Jackson food scene personality Effie Hubanks (formerly the manager of the popular Walker’s Drive-in). The snack-ish menu honors her Greek heritage by way of beef-cheek hummus with fresh-baked pita and smoked lamb ribs. Overseeing the bar program, Hubanks complements Emerson’s food with fancy sips like the Southern Bloom, an effervescent honeysuckle-vodka-and-bubbles blend. Along with shareable bites, Louise’s Piano Bar & Jazz Club serves up an experience: “the illusion that you’re in another time and place,” says owner Tom Rice. The Hollywood-glamour vibe comes across in velvet banquettes, brass-and-gold-accented wallpaper, and regular live jazz, plus caviar and old-school cocktails aplenty. For something a little heartier, head over to Boondocks BBQ, where owner Kody McCraney’s work in aMexican cantina and at his family’s Luce-dale, Mississippi, barbecue joint shines in the eatery’s pecan-smoked pulled pork and sides like mac and cheese smothered in Dos Equis–laced queso.

littleeffie.com; louisespianobar.com; boondocksjxnms.com

North Carolina

A stint as chef de cuisine at Poole’side Pies and bakery pop-ups around the Triangle marked important way-stops on Chris McLaurin’s journey to opening Lutra Café and Bakery on the reinvented American Tobacco Campus in Durham. But the foremost inspiration came earlier. “The concept is nostalgia,” McLaurin says. “Saturday morn-ings watching cartoons and eating Pills-bury orange rolls.” Indeed, cheffy iced cinnamon buns and a savory cheddar bun are stars of the breakfast-and-lunch menu, but don’t overlook the eggs Benedict or French-technique hundred-layer hash browns beguilingly described as having “an outside like potato chips and a center like mashed potatoes.” Whether you’re aiming for casual counter service or treating yourself to weekend full service, McLaurin has the same goal for Lutra’s colorfully cheery space. “We make craveable food,” he says. “I try to make sure you take that first bite and want more—and then tell your friends.”

lutrabakery.com

South Carolina

Although the skills of basket weaving and ceramics might seem old-school, the ideas from the South’s top artists are anything but dated. “There are a lot of makers in South Carolina that are working in contemporary times and working with their hands with recycled material or trying to find new ways to push the traditional forms further,” says Maia Payne, art curator at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia. Payne was one of the jurors for In the Making: Contemporary Craft from South Carolina, which opens October 8 and will showcase the work of twelve artists from across the Palmetto State whose specialties range from weaving modern longleaf pine needle baskets to blacksmithing. Take, for example, exhibitor Christine Tedesco, who is both an architect and a textile artist and draws from Italian tile patterns for her geometric quilts. The exhibition is part of Handwork 2026: Celebrating American Craft, a nationwide initiative highlighting traditional and modern crafts.

scmuseum.org

Tennessee

Pumpkin season arrives in every imaginable shape, stripe, and size at the Plowboy Produce Auction house in Ethridge. “It’s any kind of species you can name,” says Susan Ayers-Kelley, owner of the wholesale business that’s based about an hour and a half south of Nashville. “Probably more pumpkins than you’d ever see in one place in your life.” Speaking in her auctioneer’s cadence, she rattles off some of the two dozen varieties on offer: Jack Be Littles, Baby Boos, Full Moons, Jarrahdales, Cinderellas, Turk’s Turbans, and Warty Goblins, to name a few. Grown by members of a nearby Amish community, the pumpkins arrive by horse-drawn wagon. After the gavel falls, they end up at farm stands and on front porches across Tennessee and northern Alabama. While autumn is a highlight, it’s only part of the business. Plowboy operates April through October every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, bringing in $2 million per year. Depending on the season, auctions might feature green beans, squash, melons, berries, cornstalks, and mums, among other offerings. Visitors are welcome to watch from bleachers and bid on the hand-harvested lots, which can be as small as a peck of tomatoes. The freshness is unmatched, Ayers-Kelley says. “You feel like you’ve stepped back in time a hundred years.”

plowboyproduceauctions.com

Texas

Round Top is rightfully known for treasure-hunting possibilities at its antique fairs, but the mother-daughter duo Shanna and Skylar Schanen knew the rural crossroads could also be the perfect setting for another kind of discovery. “From the beginning, our vision was to create a world-class film festival with a front-porch spirit,” says Shanna, the Round Top Film Festival’s cofounder and executive producer. This fall (November 12–15) the action returns for the third annual fest, themed “Where Stories Run Wild.” Past events have attracted both established voices and emerging talents, including cast members from the Paramount+ series Landman. For Shanna and her daughter, the festival’s youth-driven educational programming is especially resonant, with year-round events and a new Summer Film Camp that gives young filmmakers hands-on experience writing and producing alongside industry professionals. “If we can help inspire the next generation of storytellers while bringing great films and creative talent to Round Top,” Shanna says, “we’ll feel like we’ve accomplished something meaningful.”

roundtopfilmfest.org

Virginia

Illustration: Tim Bower

Of all the trees staging a Southern fall color show, the ginkgo may be the grandest. Over just a few days, its leaves turn from bright green to a stunning shade of gold. “The color just sort of saturates your vision. It’s pretty spectacular,” says David Carr, director of the Blandy Experimental Farm, home to the State Arboretum of Virginia and what is considered the largest public ginkgo grove in the country. Every fall, the Shenandoah Valley arboretum tracks the display on its Ginkgo Watch web page and social-media feeds, and during peak weekends, more than ten thousand visitors may come out to see the foliage in its glory. The three hundred trees were planted in the 1930s as part of a botanical research project at the property near Winchester. And while the ginkgoes are native in China, Blandy’s have deep Virginia roots, since they all descend from seeds collected on the University of Vir-ginia grounds in Charlottesville. As the fall color season comes to an end, the trees present one final trick, dropping all their leaves at once, shifting from golden canopy to bare branches in what Carr describes as something akin to magic: “On the days the leaves are dropping,” he says, “it’s a beautiful golden snow.”

blandy.virginia.edu

West Virginia

In Coopers Rock State Forest near Morgantown, resting under the stars doesn’t have to mean roughing it. Especially if you book a night in one of the park’s twelve new stargazing A-frame cabins. The rear sections of the lodgings are almost entirely made of glass, immersing guests in the woods and the heavens above. Each two-bedroom structure also features a telescope positioned on an oversize stair landing beneath a roof skylight. “These are not your traditional state park cabins,” says Adam Krason, principal at ZMM Architects and Engineers, the firm that designed them. “We did everything we could to make them inviting, and at the same time as visually dramatic as possible.” The interiors incorporate plenty of exposed wood and feature a mid-century-modern fireplace, ensuring cozy environs through snowy winters. Already the cabins have bagged two American Institute of Architects awards, and plenty of fans—some of whom have asked to buy blueprints to build their own A-frames. The plans, which belong to the state, aren’t for sale, but Krason says he’s flattered nonetheless. “It shows how much people enjoy staying there.”

wvstateparks.com