Elm Grove closes out summer in a specific order. The free outdoor nights end first, quietly and without much ceremony. Then, about three weeks later, the village throws its biggest weekend of the year. What most residents driving between the two won't expect is that the road connecting much of the north side of town to the village center is currently closed to through traffic, right in the middle of it.
That's not a complaint about construction. It's a scheduling fact worth knowing if you're planning to walk, bike, or drive to anything happening at Village Park this fall.
The Two Free Series Didn't Get the Same Send-Off
Tunes on Tuesdays, the Village Park Pavilion concert series sponsored by the Elm Grove Community Foundation, wraps its 2026 run on August 26 with Kaleidoscope. That's the last scheduled Tuesday night of the summer, which puts the final concert exactly one week out from today.
Friday Flicks in the Park didn't get the same clean finish. The movie series, sponsored by the Elm Grove Junior Guild and the Elmbrook Rotary Club, was scheduled to close on August 8 with a screening of Wild Robot. That screening was canceled. The last movie residents actually saw under the pavilion was SpongeBob SquarePants Movie on July 26, paired with the Great Elm Grove Campout at the campground rather than the usual pavilion setup.
So one series goes out with a named band on the calendar. The other just stopped.
| Series | Last 2026 Date | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Tunes on Tuesdays | August 26 (Kaleidoscope) | Final scheduled concert of the season |
| Friday Flicks in the Park | July 26 (SpongeBob, at the Campground) | August 8 screening (Wild Robot) was canceled |
If you've been meaning to catch one more Tuesday night at the pavilion, this coming week is it.
Ten Years of Oktoberfest, With Two New Additions
About three weeks after the last Tunes on Tuesdays, the Elm Grove Community Foundation runs its Oktoberfest for the tenth year, Thursday through Saturday, September 17 through 19, in Elm Grove Village Park. The event started in 2016 as a single night with a beer tent and live music. A decade in, it now spans three nights and has added two things that weren't part of the lineup before: a bags tournament and a live trivia night, both new for this year's Thursday kickoff.
Friday brings food trucks, a beer and wine tent stocked with local and German selections, and live music, with musicians Evan and Tom Leahy on the bill for the weekend's festivities.
Saturday is the day most people talk about afterward, because of the 0.5K Fun Run. It's presented by Honest Teeth and sponsored by O'Donoghue's Irish Pub, and it does not take itself seriously. The course runs from O'Donoghue's, across Watertown Plank Road, down Elm Grove Street, to Juneau, finishing at the Oktoberfest beer tent. Along the way there are beer stations sponsored by Leinenkugel's. The pre-race program starts at O'Donoghue's with a performance from accordion player Roger Boll, billed on the race registration pages as "the World's BEST accordion player." Whether or not that claim holds up outside Elm Grove, it's the kind of local detail that only makes sense once you've actually been to the thing.
If you want a t-shirt for showing up, registration needs to happen by September 2. That's about two weeks out from today, so it's worth handling now rather than remembering it the week of.
The Road That Doesn't Care About Any of This
Here's the part that doesn't show up on the Oktoberfest flyer. Highland Drive is currently closed to through traffic between Watertown Plank Road and Gebhardt Road, according to the Village's own construction updates. Local access is maintained for residents along that stretch, but it isn't a road you can cut through right now to get from the north side of the village down toward the park.
This isn't a random inconvenience. It's the tail end of a multi-year pathway project. The Village finished the Highland Drive segment from North Avenue to Gebhardt Road back in 2024. In 2025, the Board of Trustees committed to finishing the rest, from Gebhardt Road down to Watertown Plank Road, with design, bidding, and construction all scheduled to wrap in 2026. That's the segment currently closed.
The reason this matters for Oktoberfest specifically is the 0.5K route. It crosses Watertown Plank Road directly, which is the same road Highland Drive feeds into at its southern end. If your normal route into the village center runs through that stretch of Highland, you'll want a different one this September. Nothing about the race route itself is blocked, but your path to get there might be longer than you're used to.
Construction closures on a project like this tend to shift week to week as different phases finish, so if you're driving in for either the last Tunes on Tuesdays or Oktoberfest weekend, it's worth a quick check of the Village's Highland Drive Pathway Construction page before you leave the house.
If You're Building an Evening Around It
None of this requires a plan, exactly. But if you're already heading to the pavilion for Kaleidoscope on the 26th, or coming back a few weeks later for the Fun Run's finish line, it's worth knowing what's around the corner. ZA, the Neapolitan pizza spot on Watertown Plank Road, has its wood-fired oven running most evenings and makes an easy stop before a concert. Zisters, a few doors down, keeps a patio going with live music on weekend nights, which pairs well with either end of the season, before the last warm Tuesday or after the last cold Saturday night at the beer tent.
The short version: one road is inconvenient right now, one concert series ends better than the other, and the village's biggest weekend of the year is arriving with two new things on the schedule for the first time in its history. Plan around all three and you'll get more out of the next month than most people driving past the orange signs on Highland Drive without knowing why they're there.
For anyone thinking further ahead than this fall's calendar, whether that's a move within the village or a first look at what's for sale nearby, Karen Larson has spent decades working Elm Grove and the surrounding Waukesha County suburbs. Let's Connect when the time is right.
