Ask a Hooksett neighbor where they walk in the evening and the answer usually splits along an invisible line through town. Some people head for the river. Others head into the woods. Almost nobody does both on a regular basis, and that's a shame, because the two options aren't variations on the same walk. They're pointed in opposite directions, built decades apart, and connected to entirely different pieces of New Hampshire.

The trail that leaves town

The Hooksett Riverwalk Trail finished its final phase on May 16, 2024, when the town held a grand opening that closed the last gap between Hooksett and the Allenstown line, bringing the completed trail and loop to nearly a mile and a half. Start at the Hooksett Dog Park on Merrimack Street and you're walking through open fields along the Merrimack River on a flat stone-dust and boardwalk path. Keep going north and the trail doesn't loop back to where you started. It connects into the Allenstown Rail Trail and carries you toward Ferry Street, meaning a walk that begins at your own town's dog park quietly ends up in someone else's trail network.

The name isn't decorative. The route follows a rail spur that once served the Head & Son Brick Yard, which mined clay along this stretch of the Merrimack from 1850 to 1930 and shipped bricks downriver that ended up in the Manchester mills. Interpretive signage along the way still points out where that history sits underfoot.

Because it runs through open fields rather than forest, the Riverwalk is the trail people bring strollers and dogs to. There's a swimming spot near the boat launch that regulars use to cool their dogs off after a walk. The tradeoff shows up at dusk, when mosquitoes move in over the open ground, so an early evening walk beats a late one in midsummer.

The trail that goes deeper in

Head's Pond Trail runs the opposite way, literally and figuratively. It follows a different former rail corridor, this one laid by the Portsmouth & Concord Railroad in the 1850s, and it winds nearly two miles through wooded terrain rather than open fields. The Hooksett Kiwanis secured a state trail grant back in 2010 to resurface sections with compacted stone dust, but the trail itself and the land around it go back much further.

That land matters more than its walking surface. Head's Pond Trail sits inside a 438-acre conservation area managed by the Hooksett Conservation Commission, and the property connects to Bear Brook State Park and the Clay Pond Headwaters Conservation Area, forming one unbroken stretch of protected habitat rather than an isolated patch of woods. Anglers fish the ponds for largemouth bass and chain pickerel. Birders come for the marsh edges and canopy breaks where songbirds move through during migration. None of that is available on the Riverwalk side of town, because the Riverwalk was built to connect people to a neighboring town, while Head's Pond was built to protect land from ever needing to.

Here's what that split actually looks like side by side:

The practical takeaway is simple. If you live closer to the river end of town, your default trail probably points you toward Allenstown. If you live closer to Route 3, your default trail points you into land that's permanently protected and never getting developed. Most residents pick one and stick with it, which means they're only using half of what the town actually offers.

Second Brook earned its name honestly

The food loop that follows either walk tends to end up at the same place for a lot of longtime residents, and it's not a place with a generic backstory. Second Brook Bar & Grill on Hooksett Road opened its doors on September 9, 2020, in the middle of pandemic restrictions that meant training a new staff while keeping tables spaced out for safety. But the name predates the restaurant by decades.

Co-owner Jeanne Foote is a Central High School Class of 1984 graduate, and the actual Second Brook was a wooded hangout spot back in Manchester's North End where her graduating class gathered as teenagers, woodsy enough that local police reportedly had to leave their cruisers behind to track down whoever was out there. Foote and her husband Tom, a military veteran and engineer who handled much of the renovation himself, built the restaurant as a callback to that spot rather than a random name pulled off a map.

"It's your neighborhood hangout," Foote told Manchester Ink Link when the restaurant opened.

The menu runs toward comfort food, pulled pork casserole, corned beef Reuben, and a rotating specialty cocktail list with names like the Swimhole Fashioned that nod to the original hangout. Tuesday nights bring trivia, which has become enough of a fixture that regulars plan around it.

The Brick House is already on the clock

If your walk takes you closer to the river, the seasonal stop is the Brick House Restaurant on Hooksett Road, a drive-in that's been a local fixture for more than 50 years. It opened for the 2026 season on March 21 and runs through September, which means the ice cream, frappes, and seafood baskets on the sunny patio are already in their final stretch. Unlike Second Brook, which operates year-round, the Brick House closes for the winter and doesn't reopen until spring, so an August or early September visit isn't optional if you want it before next year.

Two markets, two ends of town

The split shows up again at the farmers markets, and again it breaks down by geography rather than coincidence. The Hooksett Village Farmers Market runs out of 412 West River Road, closer to the river end of town near the Riverwalk Trail. A storm and tornado watch forced a cancellation this summer, and organizers moved the next market to August 20 from noon to 3 p.m., with talk of extending the season into October to make up for the lost date.

Separately, the Hooksett Farmers Market at 1292 Hooksett Road runs on the second Sunday of each month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and participates in the state's WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program. It's a different market, on a different schedule, closer to the Route 3 side of town where Head's Pond Trail begins.

Neither market is more central than the other. They just serve different halves of a town that keeps building parallel versions of itself, one along the river and one inland, without necessarily expecting residents to notice.

The whole town is worth walking

None of this means one side of Hooksett is better than the other. It means the town has quietly developed two distinct rhythms over the last several years, one newer and river-facing, one older and rooted in protected woods, and most people only experience whichever one happens to be closer to their driveway. The Riverwalk connects you outward to a neighboring town. Head's Pond connects you inward to hundreds of acres that will stay wild. Trying the one you've been skipping, before the Brick House closes for the season and the last farmers market wraps up in October, is a good way to find out what you've been missing on your own street.

If you're already thinking about what a move within Hooksett or a nearby Southern New Hampshire town might look like, Childs Realty Group knows this area well enough to talk through it in plain terms. Schedule a consultation whenever you're ready to compare notes on what a neighborhood like this one actually offers day to day.