Most Somerset residents don't think of their town as split, but every summer weeknight it quietly is. There is the river side, where the Taunton pulls people down toward Main Street and the Village. And there is the highway side, where Grand Army of the Republic Highway pulls them toward a drive-thru, a booth at The Comfort Zone, or a takeout box balanced on the passenger seat. Almost no one uses both in the same evening.
Which side you default to explains how you spend July. It also explains why two neighbors, both native to Somerset, will describe a "typical Tuesday" in ways that sound like they live in different towns. This is a guide to what each side is actually offering right now, from mid-July through Labor Day.
The river side of a Tuesday
The center of gravity on the river side is Village Waterfront Park at 274 Main Street. It is a small park doing a lot of work: a boat launch, a short pier, picnic tables, and a pirate-ship playground that has done more to define local childhood than the acreage would suggest. The Taunton River view is the point, and the reason the same walkers come back three or four evenings a week.
If you have not been down to the park since June, two things have changed with the season. The evening light now holds until close to 8:15, which extends the window between dinner and the mosquitoes. And the boat traffic through the channel picks up noticeably after 5:30, which is the small, free entertainment that makes a bench worth sitting on.
A block or two off the water, the food options are old rather than new. Somerset Grille still anchors the chowder-and-clam-cakes end of the spectrum. Cindy's still handles the homestyle breakfast that a certain kind of Somerset morning is built around. Society Coffee Bar is the newer face of the corridor, working as a café in the morning and pivoting to cocktails and small community events at night. That double life is unusual for the neighborhood and worth knowing about if you are looking for a weeknight that starts after 7.
What Pierce Beach still gives you for a season pass
Pierce Beach is the other river-side draw, and it earns a paragraph of its own because residents underuse it. The sandy stretch is modest, but the amenities package is not. In one park you get:
- The 90-foot red slide, which is the landmark most parents already know by nickname
- A working playground and picnic areas
- Live bands scheduled through the summer
- Sailing classes and organized boat rides
- A cardboard boat regatta that is worth showing up for even if you are not building one
- Kayak and canoe storage for residents who cannot keep a boat at home
The operating window matters. Pierce runs Memorial Day through Labor Day, weekdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and weekends 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a daily or seasonal fee. If you have a resident sticker and have not used it since June, you are about six weekends away from losing the season.
The park is not universally dog-friendly, so check the posted restrictions before you bring one. It is one of the few points of friction between Somerset residents and the beach, and it is worth confirming rather than assuming.
The Saturday hinge
Both sides of town converge on Saturday morning. The Southcoast Open Air Market sets up at the corner of Riverside Avenue and Newhill Avenue and pulls a mixed crowd that does not fully sort itself into "river people" or "highway people" until later in the day. This is when the two Somersets share a parking lot.
The market rotates handmade goods, prepared foods, produce, meat, and live music. It is a small enough footprint that you can walk it in twenty minutes, which is either a virtue or a limit depending on what you came for. Regulars treat it as the anchor of a Saturday route: market first, then either a walk down at Village Waterfront Park or a run of errands out on GAR Highway. It is the one weekly moment where residents from both sides of town are demonstrably in the same place at the same time.
For a slightly bigger market experience, the surrounding radius fills in the gap. The Marketplace on Slades Ferry Avenue, along with Ruggles Park, Kennedy Park, and the Fall River downtown markets, are all within a short drive and each keeps its own weekday schedule. Somerset residents tend to pick one and stick with it for the season rather than rotate.
The GAR Highway side of the same evening
The other Somerset runs along Route 6 and GAR Highway. The corridor has been getting denser rather than quieter, and the most concrete change of 2026 is at 578 Grand Army of the Republic Highway, where Chick-fil-A opened on April 9 as the town's first location under Owner-Operator Lucas Powell. The restaurant runs 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with the drive-thru open until 10 p.m.
Whether or not you eat there, the opening matters because it has redrawn the after-work traffic pattern on that stretch. The Comfort Zone Grille & Bar and Agoro's already had a steady weeknight crowd from the highway side. The new drive-thru has pulled some of the family dinner overflow that used to sit down at those spots, and it has stretched the after-6 rush later into the evening than the corridor had gotten used to.
The sit-down highway-side options have not changed much this summer. The Comfort Zone still does the Friday-through-Sunday specials rotation that regulars organize their weekend around. Railway Pie continues to earn its reputation for New Haven-style and Detroit-style pies, which is a narrower specialty than the general "pizza" listing suggests. And Barretts's Waterfront, technically waterfront but pulled toward the highway crowd by parking and pace, keeps its long-standing sangria-tower-and-clam-cakes identity.
If you cross the town line by a few minutes, the range widens quickly. Black Salt in Swansea, at 481 Wilbur Avenue, is the local pick for brunch and a farmers-market-sourced menu, and it draws a meaningful share of its weekend crowd from Somerset.
Matching the craving to the side
Where you eat this month will mostly be determined by which side of Somerset you are already on when you get hungry. The rough map:
| If you want... | River side | Highway side |
|---|---|---|
| Chowder or clam cakes | Somerset Grille | Barretts's Waterfront |
| Breakfast that hasn't changed in a decade | Cindy's | The Comfort Zone |
| A coffee that turns into a cocktail | Society Coffee Bar | — |
| Pizza with a style, not just a size | — | Railway Pie |
| Quick weeknight food for kids | Village Waterfront Park picnic | Chick-fil-A drive-thru |
| Groceries you actually need this week | Auclair's Market | Stop & Shop off Route 6 |
The table looks like a false choice, but it is really a driving-time map. Somerset is small enough that either column is ten minutes from most houses, which is why the split is habitual rather than geographic.
A short weeknight escape into the trees
The one place that belongs to neither side is the Chief Tattapanum Trail, a roughly one-mile loop near North Watuppa Pond with parking off Wilson Road. The walk moves through pine, maple, oak, and holly, and takes about twenty minutes at a comfortable pace. That is short enough to fold into a summer evening without giving up dinner.
Broad Cove sits along the route and picks up the occasional fisherman. The trail has been quietly upgraded with benches over the last couple of seasons, which changes it from a walk into a place to sit for ten minutes with a coffee. If your usual weeknight loop is Village Waterfront Park, this is the closest thing to a shift in scenery without leaving town.
One festival to circle before Labor Day
Spirit of Somerset is the day the split disappears entirely. The festival transforms the Village Waterfront Park parking lot with food and artisan vendors, sets up a stage for local artists and the high school band, runs boat rides on the Taunton, and closes with fireworks over the water. It is, by a wide margin, the park's busiest day of the year and the one weekend where you can reasonably expect to run into every neighbor you have.
If you have not already circled the date on the town's calendar, this is the one worth confirming. The rest of the summer, the two Somersets will keep running their parallel evenings.
Making the summer count
The point of mapping any of this is not to pick a side. It is to notice that you already have, and to spend the six weeks between now and Labor Day using both. The season is short enough that a Tuesday at Pierce Beach and a Wednesday at Railway Pie are not competing calendars. They are the same summer.
If you are thinking about a move within Somerset, a first purchase in the Village, or a sale that has been on your mind since spring, the choice of "which side" is one of the quieter things a good local agent should be able to talk through with you honestly. When you are ready to have that conversation, Brian Cormier knows both sides of this town and can help you make the next step count. Let's Make It Happen.
