Escondido Cars and Coffee, Kit Carson Park

Escondido Cars and Coffee is a park meet, which is rarer than it sounds. The organizer’s Instagram profile gives the schedule in a line: “Every Sunday morning • 8 AM • Kit Carson Park, 3333 Bear Valley Parkway, Escondido, CA • All vehicles welcome • Family”. Kit Carson Park is the City of Escondido’s 285-acre park, with its entrance at Bear Valley Parkway and Mary Lane, per Wikipedia.

When to arrive

8am. The organizer posts no end time. KPBS lists it as 8am to 11am, and the Times-Advocate, which profiled the meet in 2022, wrote that it “happens every Sunday at Kit Carson Park from 8 a.m. to around 11 a.m.” and that people linger to about 1pm. The park has bathrooms, which most parking-lot meets cannot say.

Where to park

Inside the park. The organizer does not name a lot; the San Diego Association of Car Clubs, which carries the organizer’s contact details on its calendar, lists the meet at the park’s address. Follow the cars from the Bear Valley Parkway entrance.

Which cars

The association’s listing, which reads like the organizer’s own text: “All cars, trucks and bikes welcome | Family and pet friendly | Coffee and baked goods available, sometimes pancakes | FREE.” The man who runs it told the Times-Advocate the same thing in his own words: “We accept everybody, it doesn’t matter what you buy.”

Who runs it

Dennis Nederlof, an Escondido resident. The Times-Advocate in July 2022: “The Sunday morning event was started by someone else who moved out of town and Nederlof took over.” It put the size at “fifty to a hundred cars a week.” The organizer’s Instagram account, with about 6,000 followers, was posting through 25 October 2026, and the car club association lists a 1 November 2026 date.

Before you go

Check the organizer’s Instagram on Saturday night. No rain policy is posted. Bring a few dollars for coffee and whatever is on the griddle, park inside the park, and leave the neighborhood the way a Sunday morning should sound.

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