Fish Days (now with an ‘s’) returns with an extra day

After a two-year hiatus, Port festival is back with a new Friday evening opening, shorter parade, condensed grounds

BEFORE THE pandemic prompted the cancellation of Fish Day in 2020 and 2021, a trio of festival revelers showed off the event’s signature fare — fried fish and chips. Press file photo
By 
KRISTYN HALBIG ZIEHM
Ozaukee Press staff

Port Washington’s famous Fish Day will be longer this year as it becomes Fish Days.

Instead of a one-day festival, the event will now be spread over two days — Friday and Saturday, July 15 and 16.

Many of the traditional features of the festival will be revamped as well. Fish Days will feature a shortened parade on Saturday, a smaller festival grounds and no carnival. There will only be two fish and chips stands, both in Veterans Park, fewer music stages and no helicopter rides.

But there will be fireworks. After the Fish Day Committee said earlier this year that there might not be any pyrotechnics, the community came together to raise the needed funds, Fish Day Committee Chairman Toni Brown said.

“It was a big team effort,” Brown said, noting the Fish Day Committee also threw in some funding to make the fireworks a reality. “A couple of local businesses came forward and helped us raise the money. We didn’t know if it would happen, but at the last minute, everything fell into place. “

The changes to Fish Day were made collaboratively with the civic organizations that operate the food stands at the festival, then invest the proceeds in the community in the form of projects and scholarships.

Dave Mueller, spokesman for the civic organizations, said many of the groups don’t have the manpower to staff their stands the way they used to.

So this year, there will be only two food and beverage stands operated by the civic organizations. 

By working collaboratively, much as they did during last year’s Fishtival, Mueller said, they will likely make a similar profit to invest in the community.

This is the first Fish Day in two years, thanks to the pandemic, and that is reflected in this year’s  theme, “The Bait is Over.”

Fish Days will kick off at 5 p.m. Friday with food sales and music, including the Pierre Lee Band at 5 p.m. and Sam Guyton and Generation Z at 7:30 p.m.

On Saturday, Fish Day will run from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., but as usual it will kick off with the Fish Day Run/Walk/Roll, a fundraiser for Portal Inc., a Grafton organization that serves people with disabilities.

But this year’s run and walk will begin and end at Coal Dock Park, not on Grand Avenue, and the route will travel through the marina district. The 8K run will go through Upper Lake Park and return on the Ozaukee Interurban Trail.

Both the 8K and two-mile routes are accessible to strollers and wheelchairs.

Advance registration is $35 and may be done through July 15 at www.portalinc.org or runsignup.com/Race/WI/PortWashington/FishDayRunWalkorRoll.

Race day registration will be from 6:30 to 7:45 a.m. The cost is $40.

The annual Fish Day parade will again kick off at 10 a.m., but this year’s route is shorter than in the past.

It runs along Wisconsin and Franklin streets and Grand Avenue, starting at the intersection of Wisconsin and Woodruff streets and ending at Grand Avenue and Milwaukee Street.

Also at 10 a.m., the car show and arts and crafts fair in Upper Lake Park will open. Bounce houses will also be in the park.

The Gridiron Club will host a beer garden in Upper Lake Park from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., serving craft beers, burgers and brats.

There will be two music stages, one at the beer garden and the other at the bandshell in Veterans Park, while a DJ will provide music at the car show.

At the bandshell, Ceteri will play at noon and Lynda Lee and The Brian Dale Group featuring Warren Wiegratz at 3:45 p.m.

At 6:45 p.m., Scott E. Berendt and the Us Project All Star Band will play classic rock and pop songs, including a set dedicated to the music of Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and Genesis.

In Upper Lake Park, the popular South Shore Drill Team will perform at 12:30 p.m.

Hecker Duo will perform at 1 p.m. Brew City Wrestling will follow with a show, then The Listening Party will play folk-rock tunes at 2:30 p.m.

The Fish Day menu will include the traditional golden fried fish and fries as well as chicken nuggets and beverages that include beer, soda and water.

A limited number of Fish Day pins will be sold, as well as T-shirts and can koozies in the information booth at the festival entrance on Jackson Street.

In keeping with Fish Day’s mission of helping nonprofit groups as they support the community, nonperishable food donations for the Port Food Pantry will be collected at the Jackson Street festival entrance.

Fish Day will close with a traditional fireworks show at 9:30 p.m. The fireworks will be shot off from Coal Dock Park, giving people along the lakefront prime viewing.

To help avoid congestion at the lakefront, Fish Day will again have shuttle buses operating from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.

The buses will pick people up at sites throughout the city, as well as the Justice Center, the former car dealership on South Spring Street, the corner of Oakland Avenue and Park Street and north-side park-and-ride lot, and drop them off at the grounds.

There will be handicapped parking in the lot at the corner of Jackson and Lake streets.

A shuttle bus will also take people from Veterans Park to Upper Lake Park throughout the festival.

As usual, bikes, skateboards and pets are not allowed at the festival.

Brown said that in many ways, this year’s Fish Day will hearken to the festival’s roots, when it was heralded as a celebration of the city’s fishing heritage.

“In the past years, it’s grown to be way more than that,” she said. “With Covid, it gave us a chance to take a close look at it and think about what we want to be. We’re coming back to the roots and making it more of a community festival.

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Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

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