Northbrook Days Festival: What Locals Notice

On a Thursday evening in Meadowhill Park, about two hundred cyclists in fixed-gear, brakeless track bikes lean into the eighteen-degree banking of a quarter-mile oval, some of them touching 45 miles an hour. There is no music, no beer tent, no line for anything. A scattering of spectators watch from bleachers that have stood trackside for decades. A short drive away, at the intersection of Cherry Lane and Meadow Road, a stage hosted live bands during Northbrook Days, August 5 through 9.

Northbrook Days ran August 5 through 9 this year, drawing a crowd that dwarfed anything the velodrome sees in a season. Northbrook Days is one part of the village's summer calendar. The Thursday night racing program at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome offers another perspective: the village has kept a nationally uncommon piece of civic infrastructure running for more than sixty years.

Northbrook Days on the Summer Calendar

Northbrook Days is a genuine institution in its own right. It's the sole annual fundraiser for the Northbrook Civic Foundation, a volunteer organization that has funneled almost $4 million back into the community since 1950 through scholarships and grants to groups like the Northbrook Historical Society, the Northbrook Symphony, and Northbrook Baseball. The festival is free, family-focused, and built around two stages, carnival rides, and a beer and wine garden at Meadow Plaza.

The nightly lineup for August 5 through 9 was:

One policy detail is worth flagging if you're a regular at the Wednesday market: the festival's posted rules explicitly bar dogs from the grounds. That mattered during festival week, for reasons that come up two sections down.

The Ed Rudolph Velodrome

The Ed Rudolph Velodrome sits inside Meadowhill Park and is one of fewer than thirty banked cycling tracks left in the entire country. It was built around 1960 under the direction of Ed Rudolph, a Park District commissioner for nearly thirty years who was also a competitive cyclist and speed skater. Until the Chicago Velo Campus opened in 2011, it was the more centrally located of only two velodromes in the greater Chicago area. For a stretch of its history, the Park District flooded the track every winter to create a speed skating rink, one that U.S. Winter Olympic team members used for practice, until the 1990s, when persistent water seepage into the infield soccer field ended the practice for good. The asphalt has been resurfaced twice since, in 1989 and again in 2004.

What still runs, every summer, is Thursday Night Racing, organized by the Northbrook Cycle Committee under USA Cycling sanctioning. Roughly two hundred riders show up for it on a typical week, competing on fixed-gear bikes with no brakes across categories from novice through category 1, plus a junior field and a masters division for riders 40 and older. Spectating is free and the racing typically runs from about 6:45 to 9:30 in the evening. If you have kids curious about the sport rather than watching it, Wednesday and Friday nights belong to the Park District's Youth Cycling League, a separate, beginner-focused program on the same track.

Northbrook Days takes place over five nights each year, and its crowd is estimated near 40,000. The velodrome runs its program on Thursdays during the summer and has done so for decades. It is a functioning quarter-mile bike track with a competitive history of more than 60 years.

Same Corner, Two Different Rules

The Northbrook Farmers Market runs Wednesdays from June 17 through October 14 this year, at the same Meadow Plaza corner where the festival stages go up. On the morning of August 5, the market ran its "Dog Daze of Summer" event from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., a morning when, per the event's own branding, dogs weren't just tolerated but the whole point.

Later that day, the same intersection reopened as Northbrook Days, where the posted event policy prohibits dogs outright. It was a small detail, but one that stood out during festival week: on a single calendar day, the market and festival had different rules for dogs.

Two Blocks Away, On Willow Road

For dinner options beyond funnel cake, the Willow Road corridor has quietly become the place to look.

• Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar opened at 992 Willow Road in fall 2024, in the space long occupied by Granite City Food & Brewery before that chain closed in October 2019. It's Lazy Dog's fourth Illinois location, joining spots in Naperville, Oak Brook, and Vernon Hills, and the menu leans on scratch-made comfort food that rotates seasonally, alongside a full cocktail and craft beer list.
• Just Salad opened in April 2026 at 3806 Willow Road, its tenth Illinois location and the first to serve Northbrook and Glenview directly, following a location at Edens Plaza in Wilmette. The build features the chain's usual scratch dressings and a reusable bowl program.

Neither is walking distance from Meadow Plaza, but both are close enough to the festival footprint to have made a pre- or post-carnival dinner run convenient.

After Northbrook Days

After the festival, the summer calendar continues. The Northbrook Park District's sixth annual Brewfest returns September 19, featuring tastings from 15 breweries alongside food and entertainment for guests 21 and over. It's a smaller, quieter event than Northbrook Days and a recurring civic tradition.

These events offer different ways to experience Northbrook across the year. Northbrook Days, the velodrome, the Wednesday market, and the fall Brewfest are all part of the village's recurring calendar.

If a week like this is part of why you'd never want to leave Northbrook, or if it's making you curious what a home here is actually worth in today's market, Deb Baker Homes offers a complimentary home valuation with no pressure attached. Come for the bike races. Stay for the conversation about your equity.