When is Cheese Days in Monroe, Wisconsin?

Green County Cheese Days is held on the third weekend of September in even-numbered years. The 2026 festival ran September 18 to 20, and the festival's site lists the next one as September 15 to 17, 2028.

Is Green County Cheese Days free?

Travel Wisconsin lists admission as free. Food and drink are bought at the stands, and the festival schedule noted that tickets for one farm tour were sold cash only at the info trailer, so carry a little cash.

Is Cheese Days held every year?

No. It is biennial, held in even-numbered years, and Wikipedia notes it was also skipped in 1918, 1942, 1944 and 2020. In odd years, visit Baumgartner's, Alp & Dell and the National Historic Cheesemaking Center instead.

Where do you park for Cheese Days?

The festival has run a free park-and-ride shuttle from the old Monroe High School at 1600 26th Street, with a downtown stop across from Grace Lutheran Church, plus paid lots and street parking near the Square. Check cheesedays.com for the current year's routes.

What time is the Cheese Days parade?

The Swiss Colony Cheese Days Parade on Sunday steps off from the Green County Fairgrounds at 12:30 p.m. and reaches downtown around 12:45 p.m. It is led by a herd of Brown Swiss cows, and reserved bleacher seats are sold through the Cheese Days office.

Can you bring a dog to Cheese Days?

The festival asks visitors to leave dogs at home, with an exception for service animals.

Monroe WI Cheese Days: What Happens on the Square?

History, alphorns, the Brown Swiss parade, parking, and where to find the cheese in the years between festivals.

For three days every other September, Monroe's courthouse square fills with fried cheese curds, alphorns and a parade led by a herd of Brown Swiss cows, and the festival that does it is Monroe Cheese Days, officially Green County Cheese Days. Planning around Monroe WI Cheese Days comes down to three questions: when it happens, what it is like on the ground, and where to park. The festival bills itself as the oldest food fest in the Midwest and runs on the third weekend of September in even-numbered years.

The 2026 edition ran September 18 to 20, and the festival's own site lists the next one as September 15 to 17, 2028. That gap is the honest limit of this whole guide, so it also covers what to do in Monroe in the years between.

Why a Swiss cheese town throws a party every other year

The story starts in 1845, when authorities in Switzerland's Canton Glarus sent two scouts, Nicolas Duerst and Fridolin Streiff, to find farmland in Wisconsin, and the colony they founded on the Little Sugar River became New Glarus. The settlers bought cattle and turned surplus milk into cheese to get through the winter, and when wheat failed in the later 1800s dairy took over. By 1910 Green County had 222 known cheese factories, more than any other county in Wisconsin.

Cheese Days itself began in 1914, and the festival says local businessmen planned the first one in just nine days and drove a roadster around Monroe with a sign reading First Cheese Day Committee 1914, We Started Something. It has skipped a few years, and Wikipedia lists 1918, 1942, 1944 and 2020 as years it was not held. The 2014 edition was the centennial.

The 2026 weekend: Community Night, a goat button and rain

The 2026 festival ran Friday through Sunday, September 18 to 20, with a Community Night on Thursday, September 17, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. The Monroe Times reported that the year's button, a collectible the festival has issued since 1915, was inspired by Ivory, a one-year-old Saanen dairy goat from a hobby farm near Monroe, and that the design borrows colors from Switzerland's Appenzell region. Mike and Deb Hutchinson, longtime volunteers, were named king and queen.

Green County Cheese Days

Green County Cheese Days is based at 1016 16th Avenue on the Historic Courthouse Square, and the festival's office is on the same block. Travel Wisconsin lists admission as free, with food, a beer garden, craft and commercial vendors and street entertainers spread across the Square.

Visitors who came in 2026 mention rain all weekend, though one said the vendors and lines stayed well organized, and another walked through the cheese factory sampling tent and bought Colby and white sharp cheddar. Visitors recommend finding a spot early for the Sunday parade and bringing a cooler for the cheese.

No attendance count from the latest festival could be verified for this guide, so none is claimed here. Wikipedia puts a typical Cheese Days crowd at more than 100,000 people over three days, which is a number to treat as a general sense of scale. Weather is a real risk on this calendar: storms cancelled the Sunday parade in 2024, when the Saturday heat also kept Green County EMS busy with more than 30 calls.

The 2024 weekend also staged a polka gathering that drew more than 4,000 registered dancers, led by DJ Shotski, in an attempt at the Guinness record for the largest polka gathering. The Monroe Times called it record-breaking, KFIZ reported no verdict, and Guinness's page lists the 2025 Malden event, so treat the record as unconfirmed. A 2026 event listing said the festival would try again with a polka led by DJ Shotski on Saturday at 2 p.m., and no result was found.

Alphorns, yodeling and a parade behind Brown Swiss cows

The Swiss side of Cheese Days is not decoration, because alphorns and yodeling arrived with the immigrants of the later 1800s. The 2026 schedule put the opening ceremony on Friday at 6 p.m. with a goat parade, alphorns and the Monroe Swiss Singers, followed by more alphorn music at 7 p.m. On Saturday the schedule listed the Green County Alphorns at Turner Hall and Jodlerklub New Glarus later in the afternoon, plus roving alphorn players and accordionists on the streets.

Turner Hall at 1217 17th Avenue is the indoor stage for the Swiss music. The first hall dates to 1868 and the current chalet to 1938, which was designed in the Swiss Emmenthal chalet style and is listed on the National and State Registers of Historic Places. The hall's own schedule for 2026 listed yodeler Kerry Christensen in concert during Cheese Days on September 18 and 19.

The Sunday parade, the Swiss Colony Cheese Days Parade, steps off at 12:30 p.m. from the Green County Fairgrounds and reaches downtown around 12:45 p.m., and the county tourism page calls it Wisconsin's only parade led by a herd of Brown Swiss cows. The Monroe Times has described a past parade of almost 140 entries, with marching bands, floats and stilt walkers, running about three hours. Reserved bleacher seats are sold through the Cheese Days office.

What to eat and where the cheese tent fits

Food is the reason most people come, and the 2026 lineup included deep-fried cheese curds, raclette, grilled cheese on a stick, cheesecake on a stick and cheese fries. The festival's FAQ says tickets and curds are handled in separate lines, one to buy tickets and another to pick up the curds, so a short ticket line is the moment to buy ahead. On Saturday a copper kettle cheesemaking demonstration was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. directly north of the courthouse, and the schedule also listed a fried cheese curd eating contest at 11 a.m.

A 2026 visitor described burgers from the Beef Producers stand and a shared carton of curds, and another said the lines were worth it for the curds. The Green County Historical Society Museum is about 0.1 miles north of the Square, and the festival schedule listed it open on Friday and Saturday, which makes a dry detour if the weather turns.

Parking, shuttles and what to leave at home

The festival runs a free park-and-ride shuttle from the old Monroe High School at 1600 26th Street, about a mile south of the Square, with buses looping roughly every 15 to 20 minutes. The downtown stop is across from Grace Lutheran Church, about a one-block walk to the Square, and on Saturday a separate shuttle runs from the Green County Fairgrounds. The festival's parking page carries no year, so check cheesedays.com for the current routes before you go.

Free courtesy drop-off zones exist for people with strollers, wheelchairs or limited walking range, and the municipal lot beside the Historical Society Museum has been set aside for accessible parking. Google's profile for the festival lists street parking as free and a paid lot, and flags wheelchair accessible parking, an accessible entrance and restrooms. Leashed dogs are not welcome, and the festival asks owners to leave them at home, though service animals are allowed.

Planning for 2028, and how the buildup works

The festival's site lists the next Cheese Days as September 15 to 17, 2028, so a trip now would fall in an off year. The buildup is public, because the 2026 button was unveiled on July 25, 2025, at the intermission of a Main Street Monroe summer concert on the Square, with dairy goats and past royalty on parade.

Concerts On The Square

Concerts On The Square happen on the lawn at 1016 16th Avenue with the courthouse as a backdrop, and Main Street Monroe presents them, underwritten by Colony Brands.

Attendees are told to bring chairs and blankets, and a visitor describes six Wednesday evenings, free entry and the option to reserve a table. Dates and lineups change by season, so check Main Street Monroe before planning around one.

That makes a summer concert the nearest thing to a Cheese Days preview in an off year, since it is the same lawn and the same view of the courthouse. Rooms are likely to be scarce in a festival year, so look through the town's places to stay in Monroe well ahead of a September trip.

In the off years: the same cheese, no crowds

Baumgartner's Cheese Store & Tavern is the place that carries the Cheese Days spirit all year, 0.04 miles from the festival grounds.

Baumgartner's Cheese Store & Tavern

Baumgartner's, at 1023 16th Avenue, pairs a cheese and specialty food shop with a tavern, and Tasting Table reported in April 2026 that it has served Limburger sandwiches since 1931. The classic is three slices of Limburger on rye with raw red onion and mustard, often with Braunschweiger.

Visitors mention the Big Stinky sandwich, an Italian beef, a Limburger sample and a locally brewed root beer on tap, and one called the service friendly and the seating plentiful. Google lists daily hours, with the doors opening at 8 a.m. Monday through Saturday and at 11 a.m. on Sunday.

The rest of the cheese circuit lies within about a mile of the Square, and the shops that sell Monroe's cheese are worth a stop for anyone who left a cooler empty at the festival. Alp & Dell Cheese Store, on 2nd Street about 0.9 miles from the Square, sells Roth cheeses and curds and has an observation hall where visitors can watch Roth cheese being made. A reviewer called the Gruyere-style cheese excellent, while another said the viewing hall was closed during covid, so ask whether it is open.

Alp & Dell also offers sample tastings, and its group tours need a call ahead. Alp & Dell lists Monday to Saturday hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The National Historic Cheesemaking Center at 2108 6th Avenue shares a building with the Green County Welcome Center, about 0.9 miles from the Square. It houses the restored Imobersteg Farmstead Cheese Factory, a one-kettle plant whose equipment was untouched since 1917 and was moved to Monroe in 2009. The museum's season runs May 1 through October 31, with hours of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, so it is closed for the winter at the time of writing. A visitor reported an hour-long docent tour with a suggested $5 donation for adults.

For a bargain, The Swiss Colony outlet at 652 8th Street sells discounted catalog items, and reviewers mention cheese on one side and sweets such as cheese fudge on the other. It is about 0.6 miles from the Square, and its hours show it closed on Sundays.

Main Street Monroe Farmers Market

Main Street Monroe Farmers Market is held on the downtown Square, with local vendors through the season.

Its Google profile lists Wednesday from noon to 3 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon, and a visitor praised the choices on offer and told shoppers to look for the Alley Cats.

The market is a seasonal fixture, so a late-fall visit will find the Square quiet, and Main Street Monroe's calendar instead lists holiday evenings downtown from November 7, 2026 and a Christmas parade on December 3, 2026. Turner Hall also keeps a Swiss calendar through the year, including a Christkindlmarkt on November 27 and 28, 2026.

For more to do around town, start with the guide to what else Monroe has to offer.

For a sit-down meal in either year, the dining options in Monroe are close to the Square. Come in an even-numbered September for the curds, the alphorns and the cows, and the rest of the time, the cheese is still here.