Henry Meier Festival Park a.k.a. Summerfest Grounds
Ciao! It is Festa Italiana time! Milwaukee is host to one of the largest Italian heritage festivals in the United States. Palermos Pizza is a proud sponsor and vendor to this amazing festival filled with fun, food, and fireworks every night.Thursday was the opening day and it was busier than we expected. It is a good thing that we had the entire crew to help out. Not to mention the 2 cases of Red Bull. The day started fast but then slowed down around 2:00. After some foot massages on the root beer barrels (25 cents, cannot beat that!!!), and one too many Italian doughnuts the dinner rush came. We were ready, and we sold a lot of pizzas. I guess when summer rolls around, people love to hang out in Milwaukee, no matter what day of the week it is.
Friday is a glorious day in the City of Milwaukee, people are happy and there is usually something fun going on. Well, Festa Italiana would have been the place to be on a Friday night except for one small little tiny thing. RAIN!!! Unfortunately the weatherman scared people from coming down to Festa. But it was still busy, just not as busy as we would have liked it. We got the chance to send people out in the crowd and tell the people at Festa about the best frozen pizza in the world. We gave out thousands of coupons and many people signed up for the summer tour sweepstakes. Once again we had tons of fun while working at the booth. Maybe too much fun. I guess when you have Michael Jackson entire collection on repeat; things may get out of hand. As the night went on and Kevin finally stopped singing we started to prepare for the next day.
Saturday was by far the best day of the week. It was the day that people were buying pizzas like were going out of business. Do not worry my fellow Palermos Pizza Lovers; that will not be happening in my lifetime. Every day at Festa there was a parade, but not just any parade, it featured Pinocchio, and Italian flag throwers imported from Italy (No, they were not actually imported, they flew on a plane). Saturday scared the Palermos gang. It had been a wonderful morning with birds chirping, flag throwers throwing and pizzas-a-cookin. But then out of nowhere BAM!!! Thunder, lighting and rain almost spoiled a perfect day. It was one of those ninja rain storms. You know, the kinds where you see blue skies but it’s still storming. Even with the questionable weather, this was the evening we could not cook anything fast enough. We had pizzas ready to go and people could not get enough. I think that it would have been fine except that Nate, Kevin, and Wes were working on their James Brown impressions instead of making pizzas (do not tell them, but I think they should stick to making pizzas!) Def Leopard played a show at the Marcus Ampethethre and rocked the house. Well, after a Rock of Ages show like that you might want us to Pour Some Sugar On You, but instead we will serve some great pizza. We served past the closing time and we got shut down by Festa because people were buying pizzas until 12:15am, holy cow!!!
Sunday, the last day of Festa, it was a bitter sweet day for all of us. We would be happy to go home at a reasonable hour but we would be sad that the good time would end, even though the good times never end at Palermos. Sunday was a great day and it was the busiest day of Festa. We actually ran out of everything besides sausage pizza. Most of them would just order a slice and we gave them sausage. Festa ended with a bang, literally. The fireworks were as amazing as ever, the entire crowd watched in awe. Well this wraps up one of our most successful events of the summer, so far. We sold over 2,900 pizzas, all Festa patrons walked away with a full stomach.