Last Friday at dusk, the Town Green had been scheduled to host a free outdoor screening of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. The next day, downtown Ho-Ho-Kus had been scheduled for six hours of fairground activity. The announced lineup included live music, a mechanical bull, a zip line, a trackless train, face painting, a petting zoo, and a beer garden pouring Oktoberfest brews on the same stretch of pavement used on other Saturdays for coffee or dry cleaning.
The fifth annual Ho-Ho-Kus Day had been scheduled for noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, September 12, with America's 250th anniversary folded into the planned celebration. But the part of the program that tells you something about how this town runs isn't the mechanical bull. It's the duck race, which had been scheduled for Warren Avenue at 2 p.m., and the role the group running it has played in supporting local projects since 1990.
Friday Night, Before the Main Event
Movie Night on the Green was listed as the soft opening: free, on the grass, and the kind of low-key gathering that didn't need a schedule beyond "at dusk." For anyone new to the event, Friday was meant to be the low-pressure part of the weekend, before the main event scheduled for downtown the next day.
What the Six-Hour Program Included
The planned Saturday footprint ran through the enclosed festival area on the Town Green, with a large tent and seating there, and continued down Orvil Court, where local vendors and community organizations had been scheduled to set up tents alongside the amusements. The announced lineup included:
- Live music scheduled to run all day
- A mechanical bull, zip line, trackless train, fire truck bounce house, and moonwalk
- Face painting, a balloon artist, and a petting zoo
- Popcorn, ice cream, and cotton candy stands
- A gourmet food truck lineup
- A beer garden hosted by the Ho-Ho-Kus Inn, serving Oktoberfest craft beer alongside its usual selection
That last detail is worth noting if you've only ever thought of the Inn as the place for a special-occasion dinner. For one Saturday a year, the 18th-century tavern building runs an outdoor beer garden instead, which is as close as downtown gets to a block party hosted by its oldest business.
The Duck Race and the Chamber's Community Support
The Ho-Ho-Kus Ducky Derby had been scheduled for Warren Avenue at 2 p.m. under the banner "The Quack Is Back." The organizer was the Ho-Ho-Kus Chamber of Commerce, a volunteer organization established in 1990. The event flyer offered a QR code to adopt a duck, with a small entry fee for the race and the contest planned to follow.
The Chamber also runs Taste of Ho-Ho-Kus every June, and has supported a running list of projects and organizations: the "Welcome to Ho-Ho-Kus" signs and their landscaping, the gazebo and brick walkway on the Green, the holiday lighting that goes up downtown every winter, the HHK Education Foundation, Boy Scout Troop 54, the HHK Ambulance Corps, VFW Post 192, and the ECLC of New Jersey.
The Ducky Derby is one part of the Chamber's year-round community work.
A Nearby Coffee Stop
Downtown also has a relatively new addition worth noting. Bergen Coffee Roasters opened at 20 Sheridan Avenue, a small-batch coffeehouse where the beans are roasted on site. It's founded by Hannah Lee, a specialty coffee roaster who built the shop around watching the process happen in front of you rather than pulling bags off a supply truck. It sits close enough to the planned festival footprint that a coffee run before the Ducky Derby, or a pastry after the petting zoo line, would have fit naturally into the day without adding much of a detour.
The Worth-Pinkham Memorial Library, at 91 Warren Avenue, sits on the same street where the derby had been scheduled. It wasn't listed as part of the festival programming, but it would have been a useful landmark for describing where to meet someone.
Why This Year Reads Differently
Most years, Ho-Ho-Kus Day is just the town's own version of a fall block party, food trucks and a beer garden standing in for the county fair most residents don't bother driving to. This year it was also set to serve as the local entry in a national anniversary, which was a reasonable thing for a town with an 18th-century tavern and a chamber of commerce old enough to have funded three decades of holiday lights to want to mark.
None of that changes what Saturday's program had been set to look like: a mechanical bull next to a petting zoo next to a beer garden, with live music scheduled throughout. The Ducky Derby and a nearby coffee stop rounded out the planned loop.
For anyone new to town, or new enough not to have attended one of these yet, the planned weekend offered a starting point. Friday night on the Green had been scheduled as a free screening; Saturday's program included food trucks and duck adoptions as optional ways to spend. Beyond the event, the Chamber's community support includes the holiday lighting downtown.
For more on what makes Ho-Ho-Kus feel like Ho-Ho-Kus, or if you're ever curious what a home in this downtown-adjacent stretch is actually worth, Max Stokes knows this town block by block. Let's Connect.
