Salt City is kicking off the unofficial start of summer 2026 with a packed calendar for Memorial Day Weekend. From Thursday on it's a family festival in North Syracuse, a block party on Tipperary Hill, the Mets home all week, dirt-track racing out in Weedsport, and a Memorial Day parade in Camillus.
We've been looking forward to some patio lounging in the sunshine since last fall. The time has come!
Here's what else is happening this week:
TL;DR:
The Lineup: The 19th Annual North Syracuse Family Festival anchors Saturday, the Mets host Buffalo all week at NBT, and Coleman's throws its Memorial Day block party Thursday on Tipp Hill.
Live Music: Reservoir Dogs headline a local bill at Funk 'n Waffles (Thu), Marcus Oliver's free birthday show (Fri), Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas play a Superfield benefit at The Lost Horizon (Sat), and the Sunday Jazz Jam at Funk 'n Waffles.
The Tab: Isla Caribbean Cuisine on South Warren Street, where the Cuban sandwich gets stacked into a three-story tower.
The Spotlight: The Superfield of Dreams — an ADA-accessible ballfield 20 years in the making — opened in DeWitt, with SpongeBob's Tom Kenny co-hosting.
The Build: The Central New York Regional Market lands $18 million in the state budget for its biggest upgrade since 1938.
The Block: Liverpool — Heid's, Double Cheese, Santangelo's, and a bald eagle over Onondaga Lake Park.
The Scoreboard: Syracuse men's lacrosse is in the NCAA Final Four — Notre Dame on Saturday in Charlottesville.
…and more!
THE LINEUP
Events this week — what's on, where, and how to get in.
Featured Event
19th Annual North Syracuse Family Festival — Centerville Place, 700 South Bay Road, North Syracuse. Saturday, May 23, 11 AM – 5 PM. Free admission ($5 Kids Zone bracelets). Details
19 years running, and the formula holds: live music, food trucks, vendors, bounce houses, and face painting, free to walk into. Just show up — nothing to buy, nothing to book. The Kids Zone requires a $5 bracelet.
This Week
Tuesday, May 19
Syracuse Mets vs. Buffalo Bisons — NBT Bank Stadium. Tuesday, May 19 through Sunday, May 24. The Mets host Buffalo for the whole Memorial Day stretch. First pitch is 6:05 PM Tuesday (Taco Tuesday — 3 tacos for $14.50), an 11:05 AM day game Wednesday, and 6:35 PM the rest of the way. Tickets start around $12. Schedule
Thursday, May 21
Coleman's Memorial Day Block Party — Coleman's Authentic Irish Pub, 100 S. Lowell Ave., Tipperary Hill. Thursday, May 21, 7–10 PM. Free. Coleman's brings back its summer block party series with The Arcade, an '80s tribute band running through a-ha, Prince, and INXS. Walk-in, no cover. Details
Pop-up Flower Market — Central New York Regional Market, 2100 Park St. Thursday, May 21, 7 AM – 1 PM. Free. Local farmers and vendors with fresh-cut flowers, seasonal blooms, and locally grown produce. The pop-up runs every Thursday morning through June 25. Walk-in. Details
Saturday, May 23
Pawsitively Strathmore — Upper Onondaga Park, Strathmore. Saturday, May 23, noon – 4 PM. Free. An outdoor neighborhood fundraiser with vendors, live music, pet photography, and adoptable animals on site. Walk-in. Details
Elephant & Piggie's "We Are in a Play!" — Coyne Center for the Performing Arts, Le Moyne College. Saturday, May 23, 11 AM and 2 PM. $20 adults, $15 kids. The Elephant & Piggie picture books staged for the under-10 crowd by the Gifford Family Theatre. The run is 4 Saturdays, May 23 through June 13. Tickets
Sunday, May 24
Super DIRTcar Series: Heroes Remembered 75 — Weedsport Speedway, Weedsport. Sunday, May 24, 7 PM. $40 reserved, $35 general admission, $15 ages 11–17, free for 10 and under. Dirt-track racing with a Memorial Day tribute. Details
Photo: @weedsportspeedway
Monday, May 25
Camillus Memorial Day Parade & 5K Run — Main Street, Village of Camillus. Monday, May 25. Free to watch. The Village of Camillus marks the holiday with a 5K run at 9:28 AM, with the parade stepping off right behind it at 9:30 AM. Details
Live Music
Thursday, May 21
Sub Rosa Sessions: Reese Fulmer Quartet & Brian Thomas Band — Pink Rock Culture Co-op. Thursday, May 21, 6:30 PM. $10–20. A double bill in Sub Rosa's monthly concert series, at the all-ages downtown culture co-op. Tickets
Reservoir Dogs, Face Platter, and Trilith — Funk 'n Waffles. Thursday, May 21, 8 PM. A four-band local bill — a full night of Syracuse acts in one room. Tickets
Waka Flocka Flame — The Westcott Theater. Thursday, May 21, doors 7 PM, show 8 PM. $47.19 general admission. The Atlanta rapper — a national hip-hop name on a mid-size Westcott Street stage. Tickets
Friday, May 22
Marcus Oliver Birthday Bash — Funk 'n Waffles. Friday, May 22, 8 PM. Free, no cover. A local birthday show, open to all. Tickets
Saturday, May 23
Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas — The Lost Horizon on Thompson Rd in Syracuse. Saturday, May 23, doors 7:30 PM, show 8:30 PM. $23.18 general admission, $44.52 VIP. Tom Kenny (the Syracuse native who voices SpongeBob SquarePants) fronts a 12-piece band playing pop, rock, and soul. The show is a benefit for the Superfield of Dreams, the new accessible ballfield in DeWitt. Tickets
Photo: Tom Kenny & The Hi-Seas
Sunday, May 24
Funk 'n Waffles Jazz Jam — Funk 'n Waffles. Sunday, May 24, 3 PM. A Sunday-afternoon jam, open to players who want to sit in. Details
Coming Soon: Menopause The Musical 2 at the Landmark Theatre (May 27). Samantha Fish at the Westcott Theater (May 28). An Evening With Cake at Beak & Skiff (May 30). Jason Mraz at the Landmark Theatre (May 31). Taste of Syracuse at Clinton Square (June 5–6). The NYS Blues Festival at the Fairgrounds (June 11–13).
THE TAB
One food or drink spot this week — what to order and where to find it.
Isla Caribbean Cuisine — 206 S. Warren St., downtown Syracuse.
Downtown has a Cuban sandwich that might hold you over for a few rounds of leftovers. At Isla Caribbean Cuisine, the Cuban comes cut into thirds and stacked into a three-story tower — close to 2 pounds of food once the yuca fries and sauce land on the plate. It's $23 for the full dinner portion, $16 at lunch, and This is CNY wrote it up first.
Here's what caught our eye: Isla is sitting at 4.9 stars on Google, and the praise doesn't stop at the sandwich. The Pollo Guisado con Mamposteao (Dominican-Style slow-Braised Chicken served with Puerto Rican Wok Fried Rice) is the dish we want to get in there for, and the reviews back it up.
Chef Jose Alfredo Diaz runs a kitchen that leans hard into island cooking. The mofongo gets billed as the real tribute to tradition, and the bar holds one of the largest Bacardi selections in the city, so the Cuban Mojito is no afterthought.
Isla is open for dinner Tuesday through Sunday, closed Mondays. Lunch is only served Fridays and Sundays.
Coverage from This is CNY.
THE SPOTLIGHT
A deeper look at one person, place, or project in Syracuse.
A Ballfield 20 Years in the Making
Carrier Park in DeWitt has a new ballfield, and it was nearly 20 years in the making. The Superfield of Dreams opened Saturday — an inclusive, adaptive complex designed, in the organizers' words, for athletes of all abilities, ages, and backgrounds to be able to play. Co-hosting the grand opening was Tom Kenny, the Syracuse native who voices SpongeBob SquarePants.
The field is the new permanent home of the Syracuse Challengers, billed by organizers as the nation's largest and longest-running baseball league for people with special needs. It opened Saturday afternoon as one of the largest fully ADA-accessible baseball complexes on the East Coast.
Photo: Carrier Park - DeWitt, NY (Appel Osborne Landscape Architecture)
Twenty years is a long time to wait for a ballfield. The idea was never the hard part — a league for players with disabilities has obvious worth. The hard part was making it real: the land, the funding, the long push for a complex designed so a curb or a step never ends someone's at-bat. That's where the two decades went. Now the Challengers have a home of their own.
Tom Kenny lending his voice to the opening is the kind of hometown gesture that's easy to be cynical about and, in this case, isn't. The field is real, the league is real, and the need it answers has been real in Syracuse the whole 20 years it took to get built.
Kenny's own band, Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas, plays a benefit concert for the Superfield this Saturday, May 23, at The Lost Horizon on Thompson Rd in Syracuse.
Coverage from CNY Central.
THE BUILD
Construction and development around the city, in plain English.
Central New York Regional Market
If you've spent a Saturday morning shopping for produce and plants at the Central New York Regional Market, you might want to know it's about to get its biggest upgrade since it opened in 1938.
The new state budget sets aside $18 million to start a modernization of the market grounds. The first phase: a 40,000-square-foot produce distribution warehouse and a 19,000-square-foot food processing facility next to it. The funding still depends on Albany passing the final budget bills, and the $18 million is the opening move on a longer plan that could run up to $100 million.
The Regional Market is two things at once. It's the Saturday public market where shoppers buy direct from growers, and it's the wholesale hub a lot of Central New York's food moves through before it lands in a store. The upgrade is aimed at the second job: more warehouse and processing space, the infrastructure that keeps local food moving locally.
Coverage from This is CNY.
THE BLOCK
One neighborhood at a time — what's there, what's changing.
Liverpool
Memorial Day weekend is when Onondaga Lake Park wakes up for the summer, and Liverpool is the village sitting right on top of it. We spent last weekend walking the village.
Liverpool sits right in the Salt City's origin story. The 19th-century salt industry that gave Syracuse its name ran along Onondaga Lake, and Liverpool grew up on that shoreline. Today the village has a walkable core, and the long green edge of Onondaga Lake Park runs right alongside it.
The highlight of our weekend was spending time with family at the Wegmans Playground in Onondaga Lake Park, when a bald eagle came over the water with its lunch for all the park-goers to see. Not a sight you get at most playgrounds.
Double Cheese Classic w/ Fries and Chubby Cheese Sauce
Besides the park, here are a few other Liverpool stops we'd send you to:
Heid's of Liverpool — 305 Oswego St. The landmark hot dog stand. Coneys are the move.
Double Cheese — 407 Tulip St. A newer cheeseburger spot, and exactly what the name promises. Don't skip on the chubby cheese sauce.
Santangelo's — 673 Old Liverpool Rd. A family-owned Italian restaurant. A few of us on the Salt City Club team have fond memories of family dinners here when we were kids.
Bagel Bagel — 642 Old Liverpool Rd. A newer bagel shop from brothers Reuben and Ron Snyder, boiling and baking New York-style bagels from scratch daily.
Pascale's Liquors — 7401 Oswego Rd. A long-standing family-owned wine-and-spirits business. (Currently operated by Nick Pascale on the Salt City Club team.)
Inside Bagel Bagel
If you do one thing in Liverpool this weekend, do the park. Onondaga Lake Park gives you trails, bike rentals, a skate park, and a playground the kids won't want to leave. More on the park.
THE SCOREBOARD
Local sports — what just happened and what's next.
Syracuse men's lacrosse is in the NCAA Final Four. The Orange beat North Carolina 13–11 in the quarterfinals, with Joey Spallina posting 3 goals and 3 assists. Last week they had just punched their quarterfinal ticket. Now they're one win from playing for a national title.
Next up: Notre Dame, Saturday, May 23, 2:30 PM at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia, on ESPN2. Win that, and the championship is Monday, May 25 — Memorial Day. Bracket and schedule
THE KEEPER
A local pet looking for a home.
Meet Chloe! She's a 1-year-old terrier mix weighing in at 42 lbs. She's good with other dogs and it's unknown how she behaves around cats and kids.
This week's Keeper is ready for adoption at Helping Hounds Dog Rescue.
Here's what the Helping Hounds team has to say about Chloe: "Chloe is a little timid but she is slowly warming up and showing us she is ready to trust people and the world again. We do not know much about her past, but she is a medium ball of hope, happiness and love. Chloe is making doggie friends slowly at her pace here, her furever family will need to have patience and meet her where she is. Chloe will most certainly win you over with her beautiful brown eyes."
(And if you're animal-minded this weekend: Pawsitively Strathmore on Saturday has adoptable animals on site, too.)
THE CLUB
Your space — reply and join the conversation.
This week's question: What's the one Syracuse summer event you never miss? The festival, the game, the fair — the thing that, if you skipped it, summer wouldn't feel right. Hit reply. Best answers run next edition.
THE VIEW
One photo from the week — from us, or from you.
Wegmans Playground on the Onondaga Lake waterfront
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— Salt City Club Team