Walk past the movie theater on 96th Street this month and the garage-style windows at Stone Harbor Bar & Grill are open the way they always are in September, but the room behind them looks nothing like it did last Labor Day. The bar was rebuilt over the winter. The dining area was rebuilt with it. Owner Brett Denafo, who has run the place since 2011, brought in designer Lauren Gormley to redo the whole downstairs. 973 ESPN quoted Denafo saying, "I have been in the restaurant business for 30 years!" The result is airier, more layered, built for lingering rather than turning tables fast.

That kind of reinvestment is rare on this stretch of the island. It's only the second full remodel of that particular space in fourteen years. And it happens to land in the same season that Stone Harbor's signature late-summer festival, Savor September, has had different schedules in the three years listed below. They are two details of Stone Harbor's September season.

Savor September's Schedule Over Three Years

Savor September has been the Chamber of Commerce's marquee event for going on eight years, and its schedule has a pattern worth noticing if you've lived here long enough to remember a few of them.

• The 6th annual festival ran on Sept. 23, from noon to 9 p.m., with 12 wineries and breweries pouring under the tents.
• The 7th annual ran on Sept. 22, from noon to 8 p.m.
• This year's 8th annual runs Saturday, Sept. 26, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., still centered on the 200 block of 96th Street with the same grape-stomping competition, live music, and artisan vendors, plus a hay slide and clam shell painting for kids.

The three schedules listed here show the sixth festival running from noon to 9 p.m., the seventh from noon to 8 p.m., and this year's from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. This year's schedule starts and ends one hour earlier than last year's, while both of those festivals run eight hours.

Savor September is a late-season event on the Chamber calendar. The Sunday farmers market at the 95th Street Water Tower Plaza runs its final date on Sept. 20, six days before the festival, leaving 96th Street without a standing weekly event in between.

A Remodel on 96th Street

Stone Harbor Bar & Grill's redesign and this year's Savor September schedule are separate details of the September scene on 96th Street.

The restaurant's new design updates the downstairs bar and dining area while retaining the garage-style windows that have been part of its appeal since 2011.

Restaurant Week specials earlier this year offer another look at the rest of the strip. Fifteen businesses participated, and the price range told its own story. The Burger Bar offered a three-course meal at $30 a person. Stone Harbor Bar and Grill ran three dinner specials between $29 and $44. Spiaggetta, the Italian spot further down the block, priced its "Taste of Rome" tasting menu at $68 a person. That's a $29 chicken parm and a $68 tasting menu sitting three doors apart on the same street, and neither one requires staying out past nine to enjoy it.

What's Actually Left on the Calendar

If you're trying to plan around what's still open in Stone Harbor before the island quiets down, here's the sequence as it stands right now:

• Through Sept. 20: the Sunday farmers market at 95th Street and 2nd Avenue, 8 a.m. to noon, its last week of the season.
• Sept. 26: Savor September Wine, Beer & Food Festival, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., centered on the 200 block of 96th Street.
• Oct. 26: the Stone Harbor Beach Sweep, a volunteer cleanup organized with Clean Ocean Action and the Wetlands Institute, and the Harvest Festival on the same day, with hayrides, pumpkin decorating, and trick-or-treating through the shops from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Between Savor September and the Harvest Festival there's a full month with nothing formally organized. That gap is normal for a shore town.

Stone Harbor Bar & Grill's updated downstairs and this year's Savor September schedule offer two snapshots of the September season on 96th Street.

If you're weighing what a home on Seven Mile Island actually looks like to live in day to day, not just to visit, the Colleen Hadden Group knows this stretch of the Jersey Cape well enough to walk you through it in person. Schedule a guided town tour and we'll show you what a September morning on 96th Street actually feels like before you make any decisions about it.