A Singletree Summer That Barely Requires Leaving the Hill

The short walk from a June Creek Road cul-de-sac down to the Edwards Village Center used to feel like a trade. You gave up the quiet of the sagebrush slope for a strip of parking and errands. That geometry has quietly flipped. In the last few seasons, the block at the bottom of the hill has picked up a rotisserie counter, a burger room in a space that sat empty for years, an oyster bar with themed dinner nights, and a Saturday farmers market that landed one door down from all of it. For a full-time resident, the summer routine now clusters tighter around Singletree than it has in a decade.

This post is not a roundup. It is a case that the center of gravity for a Singletree summer has moved.

What Changed at Edwards Village Center

The reset started with the Northside restaurant group, the family behind Northside Kitchen and Benderz Burgers. Northside expanded into Edwards with its fifth of six locations, including a rotisserie concept called Ed'z and a third Benderz Burgers location. The new Benderz filled the former Larkburger location in the Edwards Village Center, and Ed'z took the space next to Alpine Band.

That Larkburger address matters if you have lived here a while. A kitchen fire shuttered Larkburger in 2019, leaving a burger-shaped hole in the Edwards community, and the new location was granted a liquor license in October to serve beer and soda. Six years of a dark storefront on the walk-down corner is the sort of thing residents notice every single Saturday. It is filled.

Ed'z runs a specific playbook. The concept is "rotisserie comfort food," with chicken, lamb, duck and pork off the spit, plus ribs, meatloaf, sandwiches, salads and a kids menu, priced roughly $20 to $30. That price band is the point. It slots between a grab-and-go dinner and a proper sit-down at Zino or Juniper, which is the exact price band the Edwards corner has been missing.

The Saturday Market Moved Up the Hill

For years, the Saturday farmers market lived at Edwards Corner across the roundabout. It disappeared. Residents kept asking about it. Then it came back on the other side of Highway 6, in the parking level directly next to the same Northside build-out.

The Edwards Farmers Market runs Saturday mornings at the upper level of Edwards Plaza from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., in between the buildings that house Fiesta's, Marko's Pizza, Alpine Band and Ed'z restaurant. That last detail is the whole story. The market's tents now open a few steps from the door of the rotisserie that opens a few hours later. It is one errand, not three.

The vendor bench is deeper than a typical mountain-town Saturday market. Returning produce vendors include Wynn Farms and Borden Farms, Delectamenti Eats brings microgreens, Vail Meats returns with beef, poultry and eggs, Kaleb's Katch covers salmon and seafood, Mountain Jam offers more than 40 flavors, and Pure Sense sells coffee to take home or drink on site.

Set that against the two other markets a Singletree resident might attend:

The 2026 Vail Farmers' Market & Art Show runs every Sunday from June 14 through October 4 on Meadow Drive in Vail Village. It is the bigger event by a wide margin and worth the drive when guests are in town. But it is also the one that requires paid parking, the twenty-minute I-70 leg, and a Sunday afternoon commitment. The Edwards market is the one you walk to in flip-flops with a canvas bag.

The clearest signal of a functional neighborhood is when the errand you were planning to drive to becomes something you can walk to before coffee.

The June Creek Head Start

Singletree residents get an early hiking season. This is not folklore. It is geography.

In Edwards, the spring hiking season starts early because of the dry, high-desert environment on the valley's north side, which enjoys ample sunshine, and low sagebrush with little tree coverage lets these slopes bask in full sunlight. Translate that: the sage-covered south-facing slope above your house sheds snow weeks before the north-facing trails around Vail. In a normal snow year, June Creek is dry and passable while friends in East Vail are still waiting on Booth Falls.

The specifics for anyone new to the trailhead: from the Singletree side, take Singletree Road to its highest point, and just before Singletree Road joins June Creek Road there is a small pullout opposite the trailhead with space for three to four vehicles. Three to four cars is the operative number. Weekend mornings, that lot fills by 8. If you live inside the neighborhood, you walk to it.

The trail entrance has a bench, trash receptacles, and a dog waste station within the first few feet, and the trail is wide and smooth with fine gravel, on a consistent moderate grade with no shade, opening to views of the dry foothills to the north and glimpses of the ski resorts to the south. No shade means hats and water by 9 a.m. It also means the trail dries by mid-April in a normal year.

June Creek is the headline, but the neighborhood has two other doors to the same ridge:

• Mesquite Trail. A favorite in Singletree, about a mile from Riverwalk at Edwards, that begins at the end of Mesquite Drive, winds through desert sagebrush up to a dirt service road, and offers views of Lake Creek Valley and Beaver Creek Resort.
• Singletree–Avon Connector. A rolling trail that connects Singletree to Avon at Nottingham Road, providing year-round hiking and mountain biking on south-facing slopes. Year-round is the key phrase. This is the winter dog-walk when the higher trails are snowed in.
• Knob Hill. Hiking-only spurs off the June Creek main line, per the Forest Service signage at the second junction.

A resident who owns all three trailheads on foot has a very different summer than a resident who drives to a trailhead. That is the honest version of "trails are out your back door."

The Long Table at the Top of the Hill

If the Edwards Plaza corner is the everyday layer, Harvest at Sonnenalp is the evening layer. Harvest at the Sonnenalp Club is a New American restaurant and event venue perched atop the Singletree community in Edwards, roughly 15 minutes from Vail Village. Fifteen minutes from Vail Village is the same as five minutes from a Singletree kitchen table. That is the ratio residents trade on when out-of-town family flies in.

For a different flavor of weeknight, Mountain Fish House has built a themed-dinner calendar that reads like a supper club. Their 2026 schedule includes a Spanish tapas and sangria night on March 19, an Asian night on April 16, a 4th Anniversary BBQ on May 30, a Greek night on June 25, and a Crab Boil in July. These book up on a locals-first basis. If you know the schedule, you are ahead of the guests-of-guests who find out at Sunday brunch.

Everything else on the Edwards short list still holds. Zino Ristorante, Gashouse, Juniper, and Main St Grill remain the reliable rotation, with Vista at Arrowhead specializing in Colorado cuisine, seafood, meat and vegetarian dishes, with a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence and AAA Three Diamond recognition. The new arrivals do not replace them. They fill the middle price band the neighborhood was missing.

Weekend Choreography, One Version

A Saturday in July, from a Singletree address, without a car:

1. Coffee on the patio, then the June Creek pullout by 8 for a two-hour out-and-back before it heats up.
2. Down the hill by 10 to Edwards Plaza. Kaleb's Katch for salmon, Wynn Farms for whatever peaches are in, Pure Sense for a bag of beans.
3. Late lunch on the Ed'z or Benderz side of the same building.
4. Chip Ramsey Park with the kids or the dog in the afternoon. The community center has the workout room if the sun is too high.
5. Harvest at the Sonnenalp for dinner if guests are in from out of town. Mountain Fish House if it is a themed night.

Every stop is within one mile of the next.

When You Are Ready to Talk About the Neighborhood Itself

The point of a summer like this is that you already know the neighborhood works. When it comes time to compare what your Singletree home is worth against a duplex in Homestead or a lot in Cordillera, the answer requires someone who has watched these blocks trade for a long time. That is the kind of conversation Tom Dunn has quietly, with residents who want a number before they want a plan.

Request a Confidential Valuation when the timing is yours.