"Attendees should park on Level 3A, marked yellow, and take the elevator to the fifth floor." That's the instruction Carr Event Productions gave for its October screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at Bergen Town Center. Guests are also asked to bring lawn chairs or blankets.
The fifth level of the parking garage at Route 4 East and Forest Avenue has had a busy year. It has hosted a free Saturday yoga class since March, and it will hold a cult-film screening on Oct. 9. A few weeks later, the Route 4 parking lot below it will hold a Sunday afternoon of food trucks, a beer garden and NFL RedZone. That last one lands on the one day of the week the center's posted hours list it as closed. In Paramus, the most flexible public space this fall is mall pavement, and the borough's Sunday rules help explain why.
The deck, Saturday by Saturday
The yoga came first. Bergen Town Center's "Yoga for the Soul" is a free, one-hour class every Saturday at 9 a.m. The 2026 session runs from March 14 through October 24. Classes meet on the fifth level of the parking garage, move down to the fourth level when the weather turns, and go inside near the interior entrance of Marshalls when it's cold. The instructor is Kirsten Lane. Bring your own mat, since none are provided. As of today, Oct. 4, three Saturday classes remain on the calendar: Oct. 10, 17 and 24.
The screening uses the same deck. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" plays Friday, Oct. 9, starting at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $10 and include a swag bag of approved props. Outside props are not allowed. Organizers say costumes are "highly encouraged" and name Frank-N-Furter, Magenta, Brad and Janet as ideas. Carr's own listing ends the evening at 10 p.m. Bergen Town Center's calendar runs it to 11 p.m. and gives Saturday, Oct. 10 as the rain date. If you need a firm end time for a babysitter, plan on the later one.
Here is the full fall run at Bergen Town Center, in date order:
| Date | Event | Where | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturdays through Oct. 24, 9 a.m. | Yoga for the Soul | Garage level 5; level 4 in bad weather | Free |
| Fri., Oct. 9, 7 p.m. | "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" | Garage fifth floor; park on Level 3A | $10 |
| Sat., Oct. 10, noon–7 p.m. | Artisan Market, 25+ vendors | Center Court near Kohl's | No admission price listed |
| Sat., Oct. 31, 11 a.m.–1 p.m. | Halloween Party | Center Court near Kohl's | Free |
| Sun., Nov. 8, noon–5 p.m. | 4th Annual Fall Food Truck Festival | Route 4 parking lot | $5 individual, $18 family |
The Halloween party offers face painting, balloon artists and crafts. The Artisan Market overlaps with the Rocky Horror rain date. If Friday gets rained out, Saturday at the mall will be crowded from noon into the night.
Why a Sunday festival works at a mall that is closed on Sundays
Bergen Town Center's posted hours list the center as closed on Sundays. Yet the biggest event on its fall calendar falls on a Sunday. That's not an exception someone negotiated. The Paramus code makes room for it.
Chapter 391 of the borough code, titled Sunday Activities, opens with the general rule. No "worldly employment or business, except works of necessity and charity," may be carried out in the borough on Sundays. Two carve-outs follow. One says the chapter does not prohibit "the preparation and sale of drugs, meals, prepared food, perishable agricultural and horticultural product and nonalcoholic beverages on Sunday." The other, in Section 391-4, lists what anyone may do on a Sunday, including:
Engage or take part in any form of recreation, sport or amusement that is not unlawful on other days of the week, if in so doing such person does not disturb others in their observance of Sunday
Line that up against the Nov. 8 lineup. Patch's Oct. 1 report and the mall's event page list food trucks, a beer garden, kids' activities, arts and crafts, games, mini golf, a photo booth, henna and NFL RedZone. Nearly everything on it is prepared food or recreation, sport or amusement, the categories the ordinance names. The same text also points alcoholic beverage sales to separate state and borough regulation instead of the Sunday chapter. Apart from a few food, grocery and fitness tenants, the storefronts behind the lot stay dark. The lot fills up with the kinds of activity the borough wrote into its exemptions.
The World Cup watch parties followed the same pattern. Carr produced two at Bergen Town Center on Sunday, June 28 and Sunday, July 19, 2 to 6 p.m., both free with registration, with food trucks, a beer garden and games. Of the mall's larger 2026 events, the open-air Sunday ones are the ones built around eating and watching.
Who is open around the lot that day
If you're heading to the festival, or just driving past on Route 4, you'll find a handful of Bergen Town Center businesses with Sunday hours. All of them fit the food, groceries and recreation lane the ordinance protects.
- Whole Foods Market, Sundays 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Tatte Bakery & Cafe, Sundays 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., in an exterior building
- Olive Garden, Sundays 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., in an exterior building on Route 4
- 24 Hour Fitness, Sundays 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., in an exterior building
Three of the four sit in exterior buildings, facing the same pavement the festival will use. On Nov. 8, a family could pick up coffee at Tatte before noon, spend the afternoon at the food trucks and mini golf, and do the week's grocery run at Whole Foods on the way out, all on a Sunday when the center's posted hours list it as closed.
Four years of the same afternoon
The festival is a fixture. Carr Event Productions is based in Cranford, and its contact page lists Jackie Carr. The company describes itself as producing corporate, nonprofit, municipal, community and festival events. Its own event pages trace the Bergen Town Center festival back to 2023:
- Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. The first Bergen Town Center Fall Festival, noon to 5 p.m., with food trucks, a beer garden, a football fan zone and family activities. Tickets were $5 individual and $18 family.
- Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. The second annual, same hours, with pumpkin painting added. A family ticket cost $20 at the door.
- Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. The third annual, held on Forest Avenue, with mini golf and NFL RedZone in the lineup.
- Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. The fourth annual, in the Route 4 parking lot, with Sunday, Nov. 15 as the rain date.
The $5 individual and $18 family online prices have held for four years. This year the family ticket covers two adults and up to three children younger than 16. Every edition has fallen on a Sunday and kept the noon-to-5 window, which overlaps the early NFL games. The 2023 football fan zone became a RedZone feed by 2025. The format has settled into an afternoon timed to football.
One detail varies by page. The mall's event description places the festival in the Route 4 lot outside World Market, while the calendar entry on the same page says outside Kohl's. Enter from Route 4 East and follow the trucks. Tickets are sold through the festival's Eventbrite page.
What sits around the mall dates
The mall calendar leaves gaps that the rest of Paramus fills. Bergenstages at Bergen Community College, 400 Paramus Road, stages "Red Herring" from Friday, Oct. 30 through Saturday, Nov. 7. That puts its closing weekend right before the Nov. 8 festival. "She Loves Me" follows Dec. 4 through 12. The Paramus Public Library's main branch at 116 E. Century Road and its Reid branch run a weekly program schedule. TAPinto published the Oct. 5 to 10 lineup today.
Your own driveway has a schedule too. Borough curbside leaf collection starts Monday, Oct. 5. Loose leaves can go to the curb through Sunday, Nov. 29, and the final pass is Monday, Nov. 30. The festival weekend falls in the middle of raking season.
After Nov. 8, the mall calendar goes quiet for now. Carr's December listing is a Winter Wonderland & Holiday Village in Union Township on Dec. 4 and 5. As of early October, Carr's list has no holiday event at the Paramus center, and the 2026 listings on Bergen Town Center's own events page stop at the Nov. 8 festival.
Our team at Christian Di Stasio Group pays the same kind of attention to Paramus that it takes to know which parking level hosts Saturday yoga and why a Sunday festival is allowed. When you want that local knowledge applied to your own property, we'd be glad to schedule a white‑glove consultation.
