By late June, the parking deck at Mizner Park empties out around 4 p.m. and stays that way until the concert crowd rolls in at seven. The snowbirds are gone. The Town Center lot has spaces near the entrance. Reservations that would have required three weeks of lead time in February open up the same afternoon.

This is the version of Boca Raton that residents keep to themselves. It is also the version the city has spent the most effort programming. The thesis of this post is simple, and it runs against the tourist-brochure framing that treats summer as a shoulder season: between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Boca Raton is a small city built for the people who actually live in it, with a Friday-night concert calendar, a run of restaurant openings timed to catch the fall return, and a set of standing weekly events that never make the glossy guides.

The city runs a free concert every other Friday, and most residents still don't know the lineup

The Summer in the City series at Mizner Park Amphitheater is the anchor of the local summer calendar, and it is free.