Looking for a place to polka this Labor Day? Try the 31st annual Westfest — a Czech/Polka festival held every Labor Day weekend — currently underway in West, Texas. Westfest draws about 25,000 people annually and has most of what you’d expect from a typical polka festival, including nonstop polka music and dancing (bands include Vrazels Polka Band and Brave Combo), great food, a parade, and even a polka mass.
But how many polka festivals have a horseshoe pitching contest? Or washer pitching and Taroky tournaments? The food sounds even better; they promise plentiful Czech sausage (“sausage-on-a-stick, sausage dogs… even sausage boats”) and the town of West is famous for their kolaches, a Czech pastry consisting of fruit or cheese filling inside a bread roll. (By the way, I love that there’s a restaurant chain called Kolache Factory; it’s like the anti-Cheesecake Factory.) Mmm… polkas and kolaches… now that’s a Labor Day weekend.