It’s pumpkin season. These Boston restaurants have you covered.

“The first day it’s a little chilly outside, everyone wants a pumpkin spice latte."

Met with plenty of haters and even more fans, pumpkin season is back whether or not you want it here. And in New England, the birthplace of fall vibes, the obsession — or overkill — has shown no signs of slowing down.

Obviously the pumpkin craze is not new; a recipe for pumpkin pie appeared in the first cookbook to be published in America in 1796, according to a blog from the Library of Congress. But colonists in the 17th century were also likely using pumpkins in pies and ales, cooking they learned from Native Americans, Scientific American writes.

In 2003, Starbucks put the seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte on their menu. Through the rise of photo-sharing on social media, PSL culture boomed into what it is today, with all kinds of brands clinging to this money-making flavor for candles, dog treats, pretty much every snack at Trader Joe’s, and of course, food specials at restaurants.

Chef and one of the owners of Northern Spy, Marc Sheehan, said he’s not a fan of the constant waft of pumpkin spice around this time of year, like when he steps into a CVS to get toothpaste, and he’s immediately hit with the aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg when he walks into the store. But he is a fan of pumpkin, and each year he uses different varieties — like blue hubbard squash or Long Island cheese pumpkins — to make a seasonal savory dish and a sweet menu item.

“When people talk about the fall pumpkin craze, what they’re really talking about is the spicing,” Sheehan said. “They’re talking about the nutmeg and the cinnamon because most of this stuff doesn’t have pumpkin in it.”

Instead he uses the season as an opportunity to introduce guests to pumpkins in a variety of ways — maybe a pumpkin ice cream sandwich with maple oatmeal raisin cookies, or something that plays with pumpkin and spice, like last year’s savory dish of warm roasted squash, burrata, and a spicy vinaigrette on top. Sheehan will serve pumpkin cinnamon buns — with pumpkin puree and spice — on the brunch menu beginning this weekend.

Valerie Nin, executive pastry chef at Grill 23 & Bar, said she’s a fan of pumpkin and pumpkin spice season, but the one slightly annoying aspect of the craze as a chef who prefers to bake what’s in season is that customers are demanding pumpkin and other fall desserts around the time Starbucks’ pumpkin spice menu drops. This year that menu drop came earlier than ever before on Aug. 22.

No more are the days that we celebrate fall when it’s actually chilly outside, or when the leaves change colors, or on the day of the autumn equinox on Sept. 22. The first day of fall is when Starbucks says it’s fall.

“I went to a farm stand [recently], and they still had corn and zucchini, but it feels like Starbucks has sort of pushed us earlier into fall than I personally would have liked,” Nin said. “I wanted to do one more summer dessert, but now I feel like people won’t want it.”

At New City Microcreamery, executive pastry chef Alyssa Lieberman said they get questions about when their fall menu will drop as soon as Starbucks’ and Dunkin’s fall menu is made available.

“The first day it’s a little chilly outside, everyone wants a pumpkin spice latte,” Lieberman said.

New City rolls out their fall menu earlier than Sept. 22 — though not as early as the two coffee giants. Fall for an ice cream place, she said, starts when kids go back to school, and this year that menu includes pumpkin cheesecake, apple crisp, turtle pecan pie, and salted caramel.

Others who work in restaurants and bakeries said fall begins when fall produce is in season, which typically happens closer to the end of September. The pumpkin fanbase hasn’t deterred them from cooking good food at the right time.

Nin doesn’t roll out their pumpkin desserts, which in the past have been pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin tarts, until late October.

Kasey Geremia, pastry chef at Woods Hill Pier 4, also doesn’t feel pressured by consumer demand to bring pumpkin back until it’s truly fall. She loves pumpkin, putting menu items together like pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin rolls — desserts that she would order at a restaurant, she noted.

“I would have a pumpkin-flavored coffee or dessert year-round if it was there,” Geremia said.

But she also loves summer and the produce it provides, so don’t expect to see the pumpkin cheesecake grace the menu at Woods Hill Pier 4 until late September, maybe even early October.

While restaurants don’t particularly feel like they have to prepare pumpkin food and beverages any earlier than necessary, it doesn’t mean you can completely ignore the demand that hasn’t waned.

It would be almost foolish not to put it on a menu in the fall, said Michael Oxton, co-founder of Night Shift Brewing.

“We’d be doing a disservice to ourselves and our fans if we didn’t [sell it],” Oxton said of their popular seasonal beer, Pumpkin Piescraper.

Of their several special seasonal beers that Night Shift puts out, their pumpkin pie-flavored ale is the bestseller, and they often sell out of it by mid-September.

When Grill 23 hosts its Thanksgiving dinner, Nin said their rotating pumpkin dessert is always a bestseller; it even sells better on the holiday than their signature coconut cake dessert. But as soon as Thanksgiving is over, their pumpkin sales fall off, meaning that her team has to have a winter menu ready to go after the holiday wraps.

“We don’t have that much time for fall,” Nin said. “The day after Thanksgiving, people are like, ‘I don’t want pumpkin anymore. I want candy cane.’”

But it isn’t just demand that sways kitchen staff into buying up cans of pureed pumpkins in preparation for fall. Even before the explosion of PSL on your social media feed, pumpkin in some form during autumn was tradition. That’s the rationale for bringing back the pumpkin spice babka as a seasonal offering at Bakey’s three locations, said CEO Graham Theodore.

“It’s not just pumpkin, but in general we see that having seasonal offerings is something that creates craveability,” Theodore said. “It’s something to look forward to, so why not lean into tradition?”

But for pumpkin loathers, there is a benefit to living in New England. Take your favorite donut shop, like Kane’s Donuts, which has pumpkin on their menu in the maple pumpkin donut and will have other pumpkin donut flavors coming soon.

But depending on the day, the pumpkin doughnut gets edged out in sales by the beloved apple cider doughnut, according to Kane’s managing partner and co-owner Maria Delios. Other fall flavors, like a cinnamon-frosted coffee roll, apple fritters, and the maple bacon doughnut are options for the pumpkin-averse as well.

Because they get their ingredients from local farms, Delios said you can’t go wrong with any choice, no matter what your fall preference is.

“I am a big New England lover,” Delios said. “I love the fact that we have all of these awesome apple orchards and farms around us, and we’re able to get all this nice fresh fruit. And I absolutely love pumpkin — I think it’s delicious.”