New Hope is not having a restaurant boom this year. It is running a replacement cycle, with unusually specific operators stepping into rooms that had sat quiet for months or years. August is when residents get to form a real opinion about them, because August is when the town's biggest summer weekend rolls in and applies pressure to every dining room, sidewalk table, and river deck at once.
That weekend is the New Hope Automobile Show, and if you live here, it is the closest thing to an annual civic dress rehearsal. Below is a short brief on what to watch during it, what to eat around it, and what the weekly rhythm looks like once the crowds thin.
The Weekend Everything Gets Stress-Tested
The 69th New Hope Automobile Show returns Saturday, August 8 and Sunday, August 9, running 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. both days on the grounds of New Hope-Solebury High School. Saturday is domestic day, with classes for Hot Rods, Rat Rods, Street Rods, Restomods, Customs, and Replicars, plus a catch-all Exhibition class. Sunday turns foreign, with an added Tuner class this year. The 2026 program also recognizes two centennials: the 100th anniversary of Mercedes-Benz and the 100th anniversary of Ducati.
The show is preceded by its 16th annual Road Rally on Sunday, July 26, a morning drive through Bucks County paired with a light scavenger hunt, sponsored by Solebury Parks and Recreation and organized in partnership with the Philadelphia Region of the Sports Car Club of America. Historically, the two-day show has drawn as many as 10,000 visitors, and those visitors do not evaporate at 4:00 p.m. They spill onto Main Street, into Peddler's Village, and onto every riverside deck within a mile.
If a room can hold up on Auto Show Saturday, it can hold up in October, in February, and on the random Tuesday when a table of six walks in twenty minutes before close.
That is the local test, and this year there are three new candidates for it.
Three New Rooms, Three Backstories
The through-line among the openings is not a concept or a cuisine. It is that each operator arrived with prior ties to this specific town rather than choosing New Hope off a spreadsheet.
| Restaurant | Where | Opened | The Backstory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maddy Rose at The Landing | Waterfront, North Main St | Sat, Jan 31, 2026 | Operated by By Landmark, which already runs the Logan Inn, Hotel du Village, and Anzu Social in town |
| Cugini's Italian Kitchen | 6522 Route 202, Solebury side | Late March 2026 | Cousins Anthony Adragna (formerly Cafe Antonio, Morrisville) and Frank Picone; liquor license transferred from the Oxford Valley Mall TGI Friday's |
| Nosh Empanadas | 127 South Main Street | Earlier in 2026 | Expanded into New Hope after building a following in a neighboring market |
Maddy Rose took the waterfront room previously known simply as The Landing. It is a coastal, Mediterranean-leaning menu with an extensive raw bar and shared plates, seating 75 in the dining room and 40 at the bar, with a second-phase outdoor build-out planned to add roughly 100 more seats. Two bookend fireplaces anchor the room, which is a practical detail more than a decorative one, because the operators are betting the space works year-round rather than only in July and August. The name is personal: Frank Cretella, president and co-founder of By Landmark, named it for his daughter. It is the group's second Maddy Rose after the original at Liberty House in Jersey City.
Cugini's sits at the former New Hope Star Diner, which closed in November 2023 after its operators concluded they could no longer carry the rent. The space went dark for more than two years. Adragna and Picone began the acquisition last spring, spent over a year on renovations, and opened the doors in late March. The concept is first-generation Sicilian: house-made pastas, artisanal pizzas, a full-service bar. The Cugini Pasta, fettuccine with Calabrese sausage, mushrooms, peppers, green onions, and spinach in a creamy tomato sauce, has been the early signature order. If you knew the Star Diner as a 24-hour late-night constant, this is a fundamentally different room. If you knew Cafe Antonio in Morrisville, you already know the kitchen's hand.
Nosh Empanadas on South Main is the quieter of the three, the kind of tenant that turns a stretch of sidewalk into a real lunch option rather than a photo stop.
None of these are speculative concepts parachuted in from far away. That matters, because it changes what you are watching for when you walk in. You are not asking whether the operator will figure out the town. You are asking how the room performs once the summer traffic settles and it has to earn a Tuesday night on its own.
The Weekly Rhythm You Can Still Set Your Watch By
August in New Hope is not only tentpole weekends. The recurring calendar is what makes the summer feel steady:
- Fridays at noon — Bucks Fever Tunes at Noon, the free lunchtime concert series on the main green at Peddler's Village, run in partnership with the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce.
- Through August 31 — Peddler's Village's summer-long giant sand sculpture display, a walk-through installation that has become a reliable low-key afternoon for anyone with visiting family.
- Thursdays, 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. — the weekly Open Blues Jam hosted by Mikey Junior at Havana, 105 S. Main St., no cover. It is one of the more consistent live music nights in the borough, and one of the easier walks home for anyone within the village core.
If you are timing an evening around Maddy Rose, the current hours are dinner Wednesday and Thursday from 4:00 to 10:00 p.m., Friday from 4:00 to 11:00 p.m., and brunch plus dinner Saturday 12:00 to 11:00 p.m. and Sunday 12:00 to 9:00 p.m. Reservations are on OpenTable, and Auto Show weekend is not the weekend to skip that step.
What To Watch For By October
By the time the calendar turns and the Chamber's Outdoor Juried Art & Craft Festival arrives on September 26–27 back at the New Hope-Solebury High School lot, the pressure-testing is essentially done. Here is the short list of things worth noting as August moves through:
- Whether Maddy Rose's shoulder hours, the 4:00 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday openings, fill in or stay soft. Waterfront rooms live and die by mid-week early evenings once school is back in session.
- Whether Cugini's holds the neighborhood dinner crowd from the Logan Square Shopping Center corridor after the summer visitors thin.
- Whether the outdoor build-out at Maddy Rose lands before or after the first cold snap; the number of added seats will materially change the room's capacity math.
- Which of the three quietly becomes the answer to "where are you sending my parents when they visit in November."
New Hope has always attracted operators drawn by summer foot traffic. What is different this year is that the backstories predate the openings. That does not guarantee any single room will settle in, but it does mean the town is not being asked to teach anyone how it works. The Auto Show weekend is simply when the class gets graded.
If you are thinking about the road ahead for your own property, or want a considered read on how architectural character, location, and timing shape value in the borough and out on the Solebury side, Laurie Madaus is glad to talk. Let's Connect.
