🌴 What's Happening in Naples September 14 - 20

Garden and Gun is flying in the master distiller of Buffalo Trace, a bourbon critic with his own hall of fame and a lot of bottles you cannot buy for three days at the Beach Club, which is not a sentence anyone expected to write about Naples in September. Around that, the Philharmonic plays Mozart for free twice, Brad Upton does six shows at Off The Hook, a Grammy winning blues kid plays Bonita on Saturday night and Mercato puts a dragon on a big screen on Tuesday. Hispanic Heritage Month starts Tuesday too, and the Depot Museum's new exhibit is the right way to mark it. Here is the week, in the order we would actually do it.

We recommend confirming with event hosts for complete details and current schedules

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😂 Six Shows of Brad Upton and a Dragon in the Piazza

😂 Brad Upton at Off The Hook
📅 Date: Thursday, September 17 through Sunday, September 20, 2026
📍 Location: Off The Hook Comedy Club, 2500 Vanderbilt Beach Road, Naples, FL 34109
🎙️ Details: Upton is the former schoolteacher whose Dry Bar sets pulled more than a hundred million views, and he does six shows here: Thursday at 7:00 PM, Friday at 6:30 and 8:30, Saturday at 6:00 and 8:00, Sunday at 6:00. Clean, quick, aimed squarely at anyone over fifty, and the two item minimum still applies.

🎬 Films Al Fresco: How to Train Your Dragon
📅 Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:45 PM
📍 Location: The Piazza at Mercato, 9110 Strada Place, Naples, FL 34108
🐉 Details: The live action Dragon on a big screen in the Piazza, free, third Tuesday of the month. Lawn chairs and blankets encouraged, coolers not allowed, and the restaurants around the square are more than happy to fix that for you.

🎤 Open Mic Night at Food and Thought
📅 Date: Friday, September 18, 2026
⏰ Time: 6:00 PM
📍 Location: Food and Thought, 2132 Tamiami Trail North, Naples, FL 34102
🎼 Details: Rock, country, pop and oldies from whoever signs the sheet, organic food from the kitchen in between. Starts at six, so you can do this and still make the Van Halen show across town.

💃 Friday Night Dance Party at Seed to Table
📅 Date: Friday, September 18, 2026
⏰ Time: 8:00 PM
📍 Location: Seed to Table, 4835 Immokalee Road, Naples, FL 34110
🎧 Details: Live band first, DJ after, free to walk in, and Saturday runs the same play with Extasy on stage and DJ Zee closing. The grocery store dance floor remains the most Naples thing in Naples.

💃 La Calle de la Salsa
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
⏰ Time: 8:00 PM to 2:00 AM
📍 Location: Dimension Event Center, 2634 Tamiami Trail East, Naples, FL 34112
🌮 Details: A salsa street party moved indoors for its Naples debut, with food trucks outside and a floor that goes until two. Timed to the first weekend of Hispanic Heritage Month, and the right answer if the bourbon crowd is not your crowd.

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🥃 Bourbon Took Over the Beach Club

🥃 G&G Distilled
📅 Date: Friday, September 18 through Sunday, September 20, 2026
📍 Location: Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort, 801 Gulf Shore Boulevard North, Naples, FL 34102
🥂 Details: Garden and Gun's bourbon weekend on the Paradise Coast, built around rare tastings, chef driven dinners and the people who actually make the stuff. Friday night is a multi course Distiller Dinner with Harlen Wheatley of Buffalo Trace, Saturday lunch at Warren is a sit down with distillers Allisa Henley and Dixon Dedman, and Sunday closes with a brunch pour at ten. Tickets are per event and priced like the bottles.

🎣 Cast & Cask
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 AM
📍 Location: Bayview Boat Ramp, 1500 Danford Street, Naples, FL 34112
🐟 Details: The fishing half of the bourbon weekend. Small boats, local guides, snook and redfish on the flats with Garden and Gun editor David DiBenedetto along for the ride, and a pour waiting at the dock when you come back in. Transport from the Four Seasons and breakfast are included, which tells you who is paying for it.

🍽️ The Vault: A Rare Bourbon Dinner with Fred Minnick
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
⏰ Time: 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
📍 Location: Naples Botanical Garden, 4820 Bayshore Drive, Naples, FL 34112
🌿 Details: Minnick is the closest thing bourbon has to a critic everyone listens to, and this is him walking a room through bottles most people never see, with a paired dinner, inside the Garden after dark. If you only do one night of the weekend, the Garden is a better room than the hotel.

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🎻 Free Mozart, a Grammy Kid and a Van Halen Tribute

🎻 Naples Philharmonic Free Chamber Music at South Regional Library
📅 Date: Thursday, September 17, 2026
⏰ Time: 4:00 PM
📍 Location: South Regional Library, 8065 Lely Cultural Parkway, Naples, FL 34113
🎼 Details: Philharmonic musicians play a Mozart duo for violin and bass, a Reger string trio and a Le Beau quintet in a library, for nothing. Reserved tickets are required and come through the county library, and the four o'clock start is built for people who do not want to drive after dark.

🎻 Naples Philharmonic Free Chamber Music at Naples United Church of Christ
📅 Date: Friday, September 18, 2026
⏰ Time: 2:00 PM
📍 Location: Naples United Church of Christ, 5200 Crayton Road, Naples, FL 34103
🎼 Details: Same players, a slightly different program with a Bozza piece swapped in, in a sanctuary with better acoustics than the library. Reserve at tickets.artisnaples.org, pick up an hour before, and it is over in time for an early dinner.

🎸 Yates McKendree Band
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:30 PM
📍 Location: Arts Bonita Performing Arts Center, 10150 Bonita Beach Road SE, Bonita Springs, FL 34135
🎹 Details: A Grammy winner who plays guitar, piano and organ like three separate people and whose debut record went to number one on the blues chart while he was still barely old enough to drink in the clubs he plays. Twenty five to thirty five dollars, a real theater, and the kind of show that will cost triple once he stops playing rooms this size.

🎤 Completely Unchained: A Van Halen Tribute
📅 Date: Friday, September 18, 2026
⏰ Time: 8:00 PM
📍 Location: South Street at Founders Square, 8845 Founders Square Drive #125, Naples, FL 34120
🎸 Details: The Naples debut of a touring Van Halen act, part of South Street's Up Close and Personal series, which means a room small enough that the jumping kick is happening a few feet from your table. Eat there first; the kitchen is the reason the series works.

🕯️ Candlelight: Queen vs. The Beatles
📅 Date: Sunday, September 20, 2026
⏰ Time: 4:00 PM
📍 Location: Dimension Event Center, 2634 Tamiami Trail East, Naples, FL 34112
🎻 Details: A string quartet, a few hundred candles, an hour of Bohemian Rhapsody against Hey Jude. Sixty minutes, seated, done by five, and the least stressful thing you can do with a Sunday afternoon that still counts as going out.

🎷 Jebry and Friends Jazz Jam
📅 Date: Monday, September 14, 2026
⏰ Time: 6:00 PM
📍 Location: Dogtooth Sports and Music Bar, 5310 Shirley Street, Naples, FL 34109
🎺 Details: Billed as the longest running jazz jam in Naples, and it has the regulars to prove it. Bring a horn and sit in, or bring an appetite and do not. Free, Monday, and better than whatever was going to happen on the couch.

🎸 Mudbone Blues Jam
📅 Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Dogtooth Sports and Music Bar, 5310 Shirley Street, Naples, FL 34109
🎶 Details: Fourteen years and counting of the same blues jam on the same Tuesday, with the house band holding it together and anyone with a guitar welcome to try. Five dollars off a large pizza during the set, which is the cover charge in reverse.

🎵 Jon Halmi Live at Bone Hook
📅 Date: Friday, September 18, 2026
⏰ Time: 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM
📍 Location: Bone Hook Brewing Co., 1514 Immokalee Road, Naples, FL 34110
🍺 Details: Classic rock on the brewery patio from five to eight, no cover. The happy hour version of a Friday night, for people who intend to be home by nine and are not embarrassed about it.

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🚗 Saturday Morning and Sunday Morning

🥬 Third Street South Farmers Market
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:30 AM to 11:30 AM
📍 Location: 3rd Street South between Broad Avenue South and 13th Avenue South, Naples, FL 34102
🧺 Details: Every Saturday, year round, and in September you can actually park. Produce, seafood, pastries, flowers, and a coffee line that is shorter than it will be in three months.

🎨 Open Studios at Artisans Plaza
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
⏰ Time: 11:00 AM
📍 Location: Artisans Plaza, 5760 Shirley Street, Naples, FL 34109
🖌️ Details: Working studios in the Shirley Street arts district open their doors, the artists are in them, and the prices are what you pay before a gallery adds its cut. Pairs with the farmers market if you leave Third Street by eleven.

🚗 Cars and Coffee 239
📅 Date: Sunday, September 20, 2026
⏰ Time: 9:00 AM
📍 Location: Mercato, 9110 Strada Place, Naples, FL 34108
☕ Details: Hundreds of cars on the Mercato lots, live music, coffee, free to walk, fifty dollar donation if you want your own car on the VIP lawn. Third Sunday of the month through December, and September is the one where you can get close to the good ones.

🏃 GCR State Cross Country Qualifier
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
⏰ Time: 8:00 AM
📍 Location: Vineyards Community Park, 6231 Arbor Boulevard West, Naples, FL 34119
👟 Details: Gulf Coast Runners puts on a K through 8 meet, 2,000 and 3,000 meter races by grade and gender, and it counts as a qualifier for the middle school state finals. Twenty dollars for an unattached kid, and a grandparent on the rope line is worth more than a coach.

💪 Rise and Thrive at Food and Thought 2
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
⏰ Time: 8:00 AM
📍 Location: Food and Thought 2, 7941 Airport Pulling Road North, Naples, FL 34109
🥤 Details: A guided outdoor workout, a juice shot on the way in and a smoothie on the way out, ten dollars for all of it. The social part after is the point; the squats are the excuse.

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🧠 Trivia, Bikes and Bachata

🧠 Monday Trivia on Marco Island
📅 Date: Monday, September 14, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Paddy Murphy's Irish Pub, 1089 North Collier Boulevard #440, Marco Island, FL 34145
🍺 Details: Off season Marco trivia, which means fewer tourists guessing and the same locals winning. Prizes, pints, and a bartender who has heard every wrong answer twice.

🍕 Monday Night Trivia at Naples Flatbread
📅 Date: Monday, September 14, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM
📍 Location: Naples Flatbread Kitchen and Bar, 6434 Naples Boulevard, Naples, FL 34109
🧀 Details: Team trivia for real prizes, seven o'clock, same night as Marco, so pick based on which side of town you are already on. The flatbread is doing most of the heavy lifting here and it knows it.

🧠 Trivia with Greg at Bone Hook
📅 Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
📍 Location: Bone Hook Brewing Co., 1514 Immokalee Road, Naples, FL 34110
🍻 Details: Free to play, reservations recommended because the taproom fills, and Greg has been writing these long enough that the questions are not on your phone. Midweek insurance against a boring week.

🏍️ Bone Hook Bike Night
📅 Date: Thursday, September 17, 2026
⏰ Time: 6:30 PM
📍 Location: Bone Hook Brewing Co., 1514 Immokalee Road, Naples, FL 34110
🎸 Details: Live music, food and drink specials, a lot of chrome in the lot, and proceeds toward the Fallen Riders fund for motorcyclists hurt in crashes. You do not need a bike; you need a lawn chair and an opinion about exhausts.

💃 Bachata and Salsa Group Classes with Brian Oakes
📅 Date: Friday, September 18, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:30 PM
📍 Location: Brian Oakes Ballroom and Latin Lessons, 2343 Vanderbilt Beach Road, Suite 606, Naples, FL 34109
🕺 Details: Bachata at 7:30, salsa at 8:30, beginner friendly, no partner required, ten dollars a class while the intro rate lasts. Take it Friday and you will have something to do at La Calle de la Salsa on Saturday besides hold up the wall.

🏴‍☠️ Pirates, Candles and the Braceros

🏴‍☠️ Florida Pirates: Fact and Fiction
📅 Date: Thursday, September 17, 2026
📍 Location: Museum of the Everglades, 105 West Broadway, Everglades City, FL 34139
🦜 Details: Museum manager Thomas Lockyear spent years at the Pirate Soul Museum in Key West and knows exactly which of the Gulf coast pirate stories hold up and which were invented for tourists. The drive to Everglades City is half the outing; check the museum listing for the hour.

🕯️ Candle Dipping Workshop at Roberts Ranch
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
📍 Location: Immokalee Pioneer Museum at Roberts Ranch, 1215 Roberts Avenue, Immokalee, FL 34142
🐝 Details: Dip a beeswax candle the way the ranch families did it, take it home, and see the only working cattle ranch museum in the county while you are out there. Pre registration required, and the time is on the museum's events page.

🚂 The Untold Stories of the Mexican Railroad Braceros of WWII
📅 Date: Through Wednesday, December 23, 2026
📍 Location: Naples Depot Museum, 1051 5th Avenue South, Naples, FL 34102
🇲🇽 Details: Hispanic Heritage Month starts Tuesday and this is the exhibit to see for it: the men who came north from Mexico to keep American railroads running during the war, told inside a depot that was running trains at the same time. Free, air conditioned, and quieter this week than it will be in October.

🏺 The Passion of Collecting: Glass and Ceramics from the Sibrack Collection
📅 Date: Through Sunday, November 1, 2026
📍 Location: The Baker Museum at Artis-Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Boulevard, Naples, FL 34108
🎨 Details: Seventy four pieces of glass and ceramic from sixty artists, all out of one Naples couple's house, which is the kind of show the Baker does better than anyone. Six weeks left, and the free chamber concerts around town this week are a good excuse to remember the building exists.

🐠 Inez Hudson: Life Beneath the Water
📅 Date: Through Saturday, October 31, 2026
📍 Location: Marco Island Historical Museum, 180 South Heathwood Drive, Marco Island, FL 34145
🖼️ Details: Oil paintings of what is under the water around Marco, hanging in a free museum that also happens to hold the Key Marco Cat story. Do this before Monday trivia at Paddy Murphy's and you have a complete Marco day for the price of gas.

⚠️ Please verify event details and availability with the respective venues or organizers, as schedules may change.

📰 What's Happening in Naples

🔗 Alamo Drafthouse Closed at Mercato and Paragon Wants It Open by Christmas
The 11 screen dine in theater on Mercato's second floor went dark on September 9 after two and a half years, with every ticket past that date refunded automatically and Season Pass members prorated, while Paragon Theaters co-CEO Michael Whalen says his company is negotiating to take the space and reopen it with recliners and a full menu by mid December, in time for the new Avengers and Dune sequels on December 18.

🔗 The Sheriff Is Pulling 72 Plate Readers Off State Roads
Sheriff Kevin Rambosk told commissioners on September 8 that 72 fixed and mobile license plate readers are coming off state road rights of way within FDOT's 30 day deadline, that reads sit in a government cloud for at most 14 days and are never seen by a deputy without a specific request, and, when Commissioner Burt Saunders asked about upgrades, that he would "never allow it to be upgraded."

🔗 Collier Measles Count Climbs to 110
Collier's 2026 total rose from 96 to 110 of Florida's 158 cases, with the county's public school kindergartners still around 89 percent vaccinated against the 95 percent needed for herd immunity, and free MMR shots available weekdays at the health department offices at 3339 Tamiami Trail East in Naples and 419 North First Street in Immokalee.

🔗 A 12 Unit Condo Where the Cheapest Home Is $32 Million Just Got Its Loan
Kolter Urban and BH Group closed a $197 million construction loan from Apollo Global Management and BDT and MSD Partners for Olana Naples Residences, a dozen estate style Gulf front units of roughly 10,000 square feet each with wine rooms and soundproofed theaters, and expect to break ground this fall.

🔗 One in Five Naples Turtle Hatchlings Went the Wrong Way This Season
City beaches logged 556 nests, 71 more than last year, and 393 hatches, but also 70 disorientation events, 18 percent of hatches against a city goal of under 30, which officials blame on a bad mix of weather and artificial light and are answering with the usual plea to kill unnecessary lights, close the blinds after sunset and clear the sand of chairs and holes.

🔗 Whole Foods, a Wawa and 622 Homes Are Coming to Davis and Santa Barbara
Atlanta based SJC Ventures plans a nearly 32,000 square foot Whole Foods, more than 20 other storefronts, 200 townhomes and 422 apartments on the southeast corner of Davis and Santa Barbara boulevards with a 2027 groundbreaking, while Egrets Crossing across Santa Barbara is lining up a 16 pump Wawa, a McDonald's and an AutoZone.

🔗 A Bullet Went Through a Lanai and Two Hurricane Doors in Hacienda Lakes
Nobody was hurt when a round crossed the property line into a home in the gated Azure community, cracked a hurricane rated door on Saturday and finished it off Monday morning, but neighbors say someone on an adjoining property has been shooting for hours at a time several times a month, another house was hit last year, and they want deputies to act before the next one lands in a person.

🔗 Naples Zoo Wants Its Land Locked Down Before Asking Donors for $100 Million
With its county lease running out in 2039 and a nine figure capital campaign about to launch, the zoo asked commissioners for certainty and got a vote to explore a fee simple transfer or a much longer lease so donors know the animals will still be on Goodlette-Frank Road when the buildings they paid for are finished.

🔗 The $3.19 Billion County Budget Comes Back Thursday, With Conservation Collier's Money on the Table
Commissioners tentatively approved a $3.187 billion 2026-27 budget at the September 3 hearing, where Commissioner Chris Hall floated cutting the Conservation Collier rate from 0.2096 to 0.1772 mills, about $5 million less for land buying, then withdrew it until the final hearing at 5:05 PM on September 17, which is the one to show up for if you care either way.

🔗 Four Seasons Is Opening a Bowling Alley and Arcade at the Beach Club
The Wager, an upscale sports gastropub opening in October at Naples Beach Club with a four lane bowling alley, pool, air hockey, pinball, a professional putting green outside and fish and chips on the menu, will be open to locals as well as guests, and general manager Diego Angarita is betting the game room is what brings residents back on a Tuesday.

🔗 Avow Bought Land in Fort Myers for Its First Lee County Hospice House
The Naples nonprofit that has run Collier's hospice since 1983 acquired property at 14590 Hope Center Loop in Hope Preserve for a roughly 40,000 square foot building with an inpatient hospice house, an outpatient palliative care clinic, grief support for adults and children and Medicare certified home health, which CEO Jaysen Roa called an investment in the future of care for all of Southwest Florida.

🔗 Six Local Founders Pitched for $5,000 at the Botanical Garden
SCORE's second annual pitch competition put six Lee and Collier entrepreneurs, from a recycled pickleball supply chain to a Naples wine and spirits brand to an automotive drip mat, in front of judges from Tamiami Angel Funds, First Horizon Bank and last year's winner at the FGCU Kapnick Center on September 12 for $5,000, $3,500 and $1,500 prizes plus a $900 audience choice award.

🔗 Two Sicilian Brothers Opened a Late Night Pizzeria Next to Their Market on 41
Valerio and Luca Di Falco, who have run Mercato Italiano at 304 Tamiami Trail North since 2021, opened La Pizzeria next door on September 1 with Margherita, Diavola, truffle and burrata pies, arancini, lasagna and panuozzo, hours of 4 PM to 1 AM every day but Monday, and half off all food during happy hours at 4 to 5 and 10 to close.

🔗 A Naples Man Who Skipped His Trial Was Caught in Colombia
Juan Carlos Betancourt, 63, a Colombian citizen living in Naples who faces 24 felony counts of possessing child sexual abuse material, failed to show for his Collier Circuit Court trial on September 25 of last year and was picked up by Colombian National Police in Cali, where he sits on a no bond warrant awaiting extradition and up to five years per count.

🔗 There Is a $3,000 Reward for the Golden Gate Driver Who Walked Away From a Fatal Crash
Artemio Mazariegos Roblero, 32, is charged with DUI manslaughter after allegedly rolling his vehicle into a utility pole on the northbound I-75 ramp near Golden Gate Boulevard last September with a blood alcohol level well over the limit, killing his passenger and walking away with minor injuries, and investigators think he is still in Golden Gate working construction, so Crime Stoppers is paying up to $3,000 at 1-800-780-TIPS.