If you drive US-31 on a Saturday morning this fall, you will notice something that did not exist three years ago. A chamber banner at the truck stop. A cruise-in lining the shoulder. A helicopter parked next to a bounce house. Kimberly's fall calendar looks like a small-town scattering of events until you follow the organizer names, and then it looks like something else entirely.
Here is the claim worth holding onto before you plan a single weekend: the season you are about to enjoy in Kimberly is not a series of independent town festivals. It is the visible output of a chamber that did not exist in January 2024, and Founders Day on September 19 is the anchor the rest of the fall now hangs from.
The September 19 anchor, in plain detail
Kimberly Founders Day 2026 is a confirmed Saturday event, and the specifics are worth knowing before the week of, because parking on Old Highway 31 gets tight.
- Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
- Hours: 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM
- Location: Kimberly Truck Stop, 9178 US-31
- Presenting sponsor: Cullman Jefferson Gas
- Host: North Jefferson Chamber of Commerce
What you will actually find on the ground is a mix built for families and car people at the same time. Food trucks, face painting, touch-a-truck, inflatables, police and emergency vehicles, a county helicopter, craft vendors, a photo booth, music, and a cruise-in are all on the schedule. If you have kids under ten, the touch-a-truck and helicopter draw are the strongest part of the morning. If you have a car in the garage worth showing, the cruise-in is the reason to leave early.
One planning note that matters more than the event page lets on. The truck stop parking lot is the venue, which means you should not drive in expecting to park there. Neighbors of the site typically walk in from side streets by 9:30, and cars staged for the cruise-in fill the primary lot first.
Why the calendar suddenly looks organized
This is the part most residents miss, and it changes how you read the rest of the fall.
Three cities in north Jefferson County came together to create their own Chamber of Commerce, with Kimberly, Morris and Fultondale banding together to bring more businesses and grow current businesses in the area. It is called the North Jefferson Chamber of Commerce, and President and CEO Heather Lebischak said they launched Jan. 5 and had already added their 53rd member within weeks. That was early 2024. Two years later the roster looks different. The chamber now serves communities including Fultondale, Morris, Kimberly, Warrior, and Pinson, with more than 200 members and five partner cities, hosting programs and events throughout the year including networking events, community festivals, and small business recognition programs.
Pinson is the newest name on that list, and the timing tells you where the calendar is headed. In late March 2026, city leaders announced Pinson would become an official Partner City of the chamber, launching a brand-new event called Pinson Butterbean Days, with the partnership focused on strengthening economic development, increasing community engagement, and creating more opportunities for businesses across the North Jefferson region. If you have lived in Kimberly for more than a decade, this is the practical upshot: the fall event you attend in Kimberly is now run by the same organization running the fall events in Warrior and Pinson, and the dates do not compete.
The month-by-month string
Here is how the season stacks if you want to move through it as a resident rather than pick one thing:
| Date | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Every Tuesday, 2:00 to 6:00 PM | Kimberly Farmers Market | Kimberly Truck Stop, Old Highway 31 |
| Saturday, September 19 | Kimberly Founders Day | Kimberly Truck Stop |
| Saturday, October 17 | Warrior Day 2026 | Main Street, Warrior |
| Fall 2026 | Pinson Butterbean Days | Main Street, Pinson |
Two of those four run out of the same lot on Old Highway 31. That is not a coincidence. The truck stop is the chamber's default footprint in Kimberly, which is why the farmers market and Founders Day share it. If you have never been to the Tuesday market, September 15 is a soft-launch reason to go, four days before the big Saturday. You will see the same volunteers setting up both.
Where to eat before or after
Kimberly is small enough that a festival day can leave you wondering where locals actually go for lunch when they skip the food trucks. A short list of names you will hear if you ask:
- TP's Bar & Grill on Peterson Drive. Bar food, burgers, straightforward. The most consistently mentioned Kimberly-proper spot for a sit-down meal after a Saturday event.
- Porky's Pride Smoke House. BBQ with outdoor seating, which is the reason to add it to a September or October afternoon when the weather is on your side.
- Majestic Pies. Outdoor seating again, useful when you have kids winding down from inflatables.
- Annie Mae's Wing Stop. Round out the short list.
None of these are secrets to people who live here. The point of naming them is that if you have family coming in for Founders Day weekend and they ask where to go after, you now have three answers that are not chains on the interstate exit.
The Tuesday habit most people skip
Founders Day gets the marketing. The Tuesday afternoon market is the thing that actually builds the pattern of a place.
The city sponsors the Kimberly Farmers Market at the Kimberly Truck Stop on Old Highway 31, and it runs every Tuesday from 2:00 to 6:00 PM. It is a small market. That is the feature, not the flaw. You will see the same faces, and by the third Tuesday you attend, someone will remember what you bought last time. If you have been telling yourself you should shop more locally and less at the big-box grocery on the way home from Birmingham, a two-hour window one afternoon a week is a low bar.
Pair it with a walk at Kimberly Municipal Park at 533 Park Avenue. The park has an outdoor Fitness Court that opened in 2025 through a partnership between Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, the City of Kimberly, and the National Fitness Campaign. It is free, it is public, and it is under-used relative to how new it is. September and October evenings in Kimberly are the best window of the year for it. You can find the site details on the City of Kimberly directory.
If you are hosting out-of-town family this fall
Here is a version of the weekend that works if you have relatives coming in for Founders Day and you want a Saturday-Sunday that shows Kimberly at its best without driving them to Birmingham twice.
Friday evening, walk the park before dinner at TP's. Saturday morning, arrive at the truck stop by 9:15 for Founders Day, spend the first hour at the cruise-in and touch-a-truck, and eat from the food trucks so you are not fighting the lunch crowd anywhere else. Saturday afternoon, drive fifteen minutes to Rickwood Caverns State Park in Warrior for the underground tour. Sunday, do the slow version of the morning at Majestic Pies or Porky's Pride for the outdoor seats. If the visit stretches into October, Warrior Day on the 17th is worth putting on the calendar, and by then Pinson Butterbean Days will have posted its date.
That itinerary is not a marketing pitch. It is what a resident actually does with a fall weekend when the chamber has done its job. Two years ago the calendar could not have been built this way because half the events were not organized under a shared roof.
When your fall plans turn into a bigger question
Sometimes the season you spend in a place is the season you decide to plant deeper roots in it, whether that means buying a first home in Kimberly, upgrading to more land, or helping a parent move closer. When those conversations start at a Founders Day picnic table, having an Alabama agent who already knows the North Jefferson calendar and the streets around Old Highway 31 makes the next step easier. Adam Ray works across Kimberly, Hayden, Gardendale, and the surrounding North Jefferson communities, and a straightforward first conversation is the best place to start.
Schedule a consultation whenever you are ready to talk through what a move in or around Kimberly could look like.
