Guinness Oyster Festival

The nice thing about a Friday wedding in Chicago is that we had a whole day on Saturday to enjoy the city.  What better way to do that than attend one of our favorite Chicago street festivals, the Guinness Oyster Festival.  One of the traditions we miss most about Chicago is its passion for festivals.  During the relatively warmer months, different parts of the city come alive in fest whether it is a neighborhood-sponsored festival like the Old St. Patrick's World's Largest Block Party and the Sheffield Garden Walk or the city-sponsored festivals like Taste of Chicago and the Air & Water Show.  The same ones typically occur during the same times of the year, so you can structure your entire season around attending these types of events in-between all the other activities you normally do.

Anyway, enough nostalgia toward the city life, and back to our day, which started off with a solid breakfast out in Forest Park at the Harrison Cafe as we met up with Jess, Patrick, and Andrew.  We headed straight for the festival after breakfast corralling as many people as we can track down in the Chicago-area.  Another great thing about the city is all we have to do is text message a few of our friends in the area, "we're in town, there's the guinness oyster fest this weekend, want to meet up there?" and we're bound to get a 75% return.

We met up with Sharon, John, and Baby Jamie for the first few hours.  Eventually, a few of the Chi O's from the previous night made it out along with Ray, Hoyt, and I'm sure a few other characters.  The premise of the Guinness Oyster Festival is exactly what it seems as -- a whole lot of Guinness and a whole lot of oysters -- plus a mix of the other street food (see below), beer, and live music all in the Roscoe Village neighborhood of Chicago.  Good times.   More pictures from the evening in my photo album.