‘Good music, good food, good dancing’: Downtown Syracuse celebrates first Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest Shines in Downtown Syracuse
Wolff’s Biergarten partnered with the City of Syracuse to hold the inaugural festival in Clinton Square.
This wasn’t Keishil Lopez’s first rodeo.
Hailing from Florida, Lopez grew up attending the Gasparilla Pirate Festival, never passing the chance to get dressed up in her pirate gear.
“Now that I live here, I feel like this is probably the equivalent of Gasparilla,” Lopez said. “And if I’m gonna go to the Oktoberfest, why not try and be in costume?
Lopez moved to Syracuse about two years ago, but due her demanding job as an Army intelligence officer, she doesn’t usually have time to attend festivals. It was “perfect”, she said, that Oktoberfest came to Clinton Square.
“I always see events in Syracuse, and there wasn’t an Oktoberfest here, so we had to jump on that gap there, ” Oktoberfest coordinator Sam Leamy said.
On Saturday, Wolff’s Biergarten hosted its first-ever Oktoberfest celebration in Syracuse. The family-friendly event in Clinton Square featured live Polka music, authentic German food including bratwurst and pretzels, drinks, local vendors, games, competitions and even a weiner dog race.
Even though Syracuse hosts an array of festive events throughout the year, festival coordinator Sam Leavy said once he realized Syracuse didn’t have an Oktoberfest, he had to bridge that gap. He helped coordinate Albany’s Oktoberfest festival for the past 16 years.
“I love putting on big festivals,” Leamy said. “I have a great core of staff who love these big festivals and bringing the community together.”
Leamy said 90% of the staff had never run an Oktoberfest before, but because of the funding and ample space the city of Syracuse provided, he had confidence in how it would turn out.
“Syracuse has been a joy, actually. We just want to see smiling faces,” Leamy said.
Faces certainly lit up at the sight of a wiener dog race.
Leamy planned to hold a strongman competition in addition to the race, but low signups necessitated the move to new entertainment. The festival organizers replaced it with a boot-chugging contest and a stein-holding bout.
The crowd cheered on the events and live music from the Fritz polka band, with food and drinks in hand.
Attendees ate homemade pierogis and kielbasa sandwiches from a Polish Roadhouse truck. They also tapped into four different kinds of bratwursts when a break was needed from Bavarian-style brews.
“We want to have that German feel, that Bavarian feel, with not only the bratwurst sausages, pretzel sticks and the authentic German beer, but bring alive the German heritage that’s alive and well throughout,” Leamy said.
The beer and bratwurst sales had about every eligible event-goer sipping and munching away. Every bier token was good for a souvenir 33-ounce liter cup, and Larry North and Innrry Kunes made sure to have a couple.
Unlike Lopez, North and Kunes have attended their fair share of Oktoberfests — and not just in central New York. The two have traveled to 12 states to enjoy the German tradition.
“For 20 years, multiple times a year, once a year, we do the main fest,” Kunes said. “We’ve gone from Walpole, Mass., to Kitchener, Canada.”
It’s the little things that keep them coming back time after time.
“Good view, good music, good food, good dancing,” North said.
Since North and Kunes first started attending Oktoberfests in the early 2000s, they said the events have become increasingly important to them. North said his age won’t stop him, and that it’s actually a motivator to find new adventures.
“And as you get older, you need more fun, because the end of the trail is coming up not too far down the road,” North said.
North and Kunes certainly gave their truest attempts at winning the best-dressed award. North donned a tracht, or lederhosen, with leather shorts and suspenders, just enough to hide the most unique part of his outfit.
Dangling from his belt, North donned coin engraved with his grandfather’s birth year, 1895 as a way to commemorate and show respect to his German ancestry.
After a successful first festival, Leamy hopes to grow Oktoberfest in Syracuse in the future.
“People are working really hard to put on this event,” Lopez said. “It gives everyone that relaxed sense of ‘Oh, it’s a festival, it’s a party.'”
is a Multimedia reporter with Spectrum News 1 and a digital producer for The NewsHouse.