The Cream of Wheaton festival kicked off in downtown Wheaton Thursday night with food, rides, games, a beer garden and entertainment.
White Sox fans can relate.
Comiskey Park will forever be Comiskey Park. Corporate-branded stadium names shall not be said out loud.
A similar vow was made when a harbinger of summer festival season morphed into the Taste of Wheaton.
Regardless of the official title, people who grew up in Wheaton still fondly referred to their hometown celebration by its one, true name, a clever play on words: Cream of Wheaton.
To their delight, the festival opened Thursday night with its original moniker after over a decade as the more generic-sounding “Taste.”
In the end, the cream always rises to the top.
The Wheaton Park District and the chamber of commerce changed the name back to Cream of Wheaton, whipping up four days of live music and good eating in Memorial Park. Carnival rides will fill three downtown city blocks through Sunday.
So what’s in the name?
In the early 1980s, Sheila Franklin, a newly hired park district recreation supervisor, was assigned the task of rejuvenating an older spring fling event.
by signing up you agree to our terms of service
“She wanted something that would demonstrate why Wheaton is such a wonderful city,” former park board member Jane Hodgkinson recalled.
Franklin wanted only the best entertainment, food, arts and crafts.
But she was still trying to come up with a festival name that “encapsulated this concept of what would be the best of Wheaton,” Hodgkinson said.
“She wanted something that was going to be original, so she just started brainstorming with a few people,” Hodgkinson said.
Enter Hodgkinson and her pun-making skills. She could have been a headline writer.
The more Franklin described the event — nothing but the best — Hodgkinson thought she was choosing a festival lineup from the cream of the crop. A brand of porridge came to mind.
Cream of Wheat. Cream of Wheaton. Get it?
“What occurred to me right away was the play on the words of Wheaton and Cream of Wheat, which is a lesser-known breakfast cereal, kind of like oatmeal,” Hodgkinson said.
The first Cream of Wheaton was held on May 8, 1982. Radio Hall of Famer Steve Dahl often gave a shoutout to the cereal-inspired name on his shows.
“Every year in May, he would be talking about something, and it would just come up in random conversations where he’d say something to the effect of, ‘And of course, you know, there’s the most creatively named festival around, the Cream of Wheaton, coming up,'” Hodgkinson said.
People remembered the name even after the park district and chamber of commerce combined their respective festivals — Cream of Wheaton and Autumnfest — into one summer kickoff celebration dubbed the Taste of Wheaton back in 2009.
Some Wheatonnites felt a sentimental attachment to the old name. The opening day theme for the 2017 festival — “Throwback Thursday to the Cream of Wheaton” — reveled in that nostalgia. Now all four days of the festival will.
The Cream of Wheaton marks the return of the summer tradition after a two-year hiatus, first due to COVID-19 restrictions on large gatherings and then downtown streetscape construction. The 2019 edition of the Taste drew more than 30,000 people.
“During this amazing four-day community festival, we celebrate our positive community spirit and the best of everything Wheaton,” park district Executive Director Mike Benard said. “With that in mind, it was an easy decision to return to our original and creative event name.”
Cream of Wheaton continues Friday with free live music at the Memorial Park Bandshell. A food vendor row along Karlskoga Avenue features Choun’s Thai Restaurant, Gino’s East, 302, Genoa Italian Concession, Dippin Dots, Barone’s, Taco Factory, R & S Concession, Papa Fresco’s, and Kool Kat Ice Cream.
The annual Run for the Animals will step off at 7:30 a.m. Saturday with 5K and 10K races to raise funds for Cosley Zoo. A half-mile version for kids starts at 8:45 a.m.
The carnival on Liberty Drive, from Main Street to Wheaton Avenue, will be open from 4 to 11 p.m. Friday, noon to 11 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 8 p.m. Sunday.
