The National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame has set the date for its 22nd Slovenian Sausage Festival: Saturday, September 12, at SNPJ Farm in Kirtland. Expect polka bands, waltzes, and a people's-choice vote for the best klobasa in the region, with music running non-stop from noon to 8 p.m.
According to Cleveland.com, admission is $12 in advance or $15 at the gate, and anyone 18 and under gets in free. SNPJ Farm sits off Chardon Road (U.S. 6), about three miles east of Ohio 306 and six miles west of Ohio 44, at 10946 Heath Road in Kirtland. Cleveland-style bands and entertainers will keep the dance floor moving all afternoon and into the evening, and festivalgoers are welcome to bring their own accordions or banjos to jam along.
Tickets and information are available through the Polka Hall of Fame's ticket office at 605 East 222nd Street in Euclid, next door to Euclid City Hall, which is open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays. The office can be reached at 216-261-FAME or 866-66-POLKA, and questions can also be sent to the festival by email at [email protected].
A Sausage Crown With Real Stakes
The people's-choice vote isn't just bragging rights. The festival's winning butcher is crowned Klobasa King and earns the exclusive right to serve as the official sausage vendor at the Polka Hall of Fame's Thanksgiving Polka Weekend, according to CoolCleveland. That three-day national gathering functions as a major reunion for polka performers and fans, making the summer sausage contest a year-round business opportunity for the small local shops that compete.
Euclid-based Azman Quality Meats has become one of the festival's most consistent contenders, using family recipes brought from Slovenia 95 years ago. Per the Euclid Observer, the shop pulled off consecutive double victories in 2022 and 2025, taking home both the People's Choice and Jury Best of Fest titles. Raddell's Sausage Shop, out of Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood, has also been a recurring name in the competition.
The 2025 festival carried an especially high-profile moment: NASA astronaut and Euclid native Sunita Williams served as a jury member and has previously brought Euclid-made Slovenian smoked sausages aboard the International Space Station during her space missions, the Euclid Observer reports. Williams was born in Euclid and has Slovenian ancestry on her mother's side, a detail that has made her something of a hometown legend at the festival.
Roots Running Deep in Northeast Ohio
Greater Cleveland developed the largest Slovenian population outside of Europe, building enclave neighborhoods in Collinwood, St. Clair, and Slavic Village that sustained Old World customs through cultural halls, churches, and butcher shops, according to CoolCleveland. That community backbone helped Cleveland-style polka take hold nationally after World War II, when Cleveland native Frankie Yankovic scored million-selling records including “Just Because” and later won the first-ever Polka Grammy Award in 1986, per Wikipedia.
The National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame, which sponsors the sausage festival, was established in 1987 by local musicians and ethnic community leaders and is housed on the first floor of Euclid's historic old city hall, according to Ohio Magazine. The organization maintains an archive of more than 6,000 vintage polka recordings dating back to 1913 alongside historic accordions, and it produces a live weekly broadcast, Polka Hall of Fame Radio, airing Saturdays on Cleveland's WINT (101.5 FM / 1330 AM) and streaming globally.
The Farm Behind the Festival
SNPJ Farm in Kirtland was established in 1939 as a dedicated recreation ground meant to preserve Slovenian heritage through seasonal polka dances, breakfasts, and cultural festivals, according to the venue's own history. It's run by local lodges of the Slovene National Benefit Society, the fraternal organization originally founded in Chicago on April 6, 1904, to provide affordable life insurance and disability coverage to Slovenian immigrants, per SNPJ. More than a century later, that same fraternal society still counts more than $125 million in assets and continues hosting the summer sausage festival that keeps its founding culture alive one klobasa at a time.
