A Local's Guide to Black Forest Festival Weekend, August 7–8, 2026

If you already live off Shoup, Burgess, or Milam, you know the drill: on the second Saturday of August, the intersection of Black Forest Road and Shoup Road becomes the busiest patch of pavement in El Paso County north of Woodmen. What outsiders read as "a parade" is really a 36-hour relay that moves from the Community Center to Black Forest Brewing Company and out to the restaurants along Shoup. The 2026 edition, themed Stars, Stripes and Tall Pines, is the 57th year of the event and the last one before the Community Center's centennial in 2027. Here is how residents actually spend the weekend, hour by hour, venue by venue.

Friday night belongs to the Biergarten, not the parade

The flyer says the festival is Saturday. The regulars know it starts Friday. The 8th Annual Black Forest Biergarten Fundraiser runs Friday, August 7, 2026 from 5:00 PM at the Black Forest Community Center, with WireWood Station playing at 6:00 PM. It is the volunteer fundraiser that pays for most of what happens the next morning, which is why longtime residents treat it as the actual kickoff.

If you have never been, the geography is simple. The Biergarten sets up on the lawn of the log building at the corner of Black Forest and Shoup Roads, the same community-built log building that turns 100 in 2027. Bring a folding chair. Walk in from the neighborhood if you can, because parking gets tight by 7:00 PM and the Shoup Road shoulder fills first.

Saturday, in the order it actually happens

The published start time is 6:30 AM, and that is not a typo. Here is the sequence a Black Forest resident who has done this a dozen times will follow:

Two things on this schedule deserve a longer look, because they are the reason the festival is a locals' event and not a tourist one.

First, the Pancake Picnic Breakfast is outdoors on Saturday morning, and it is not a symbolic gesture. It is where you run into the neighbor who is selling and the neighbor who is thinking about selling and the one who has lived on his five acres since 1978 and has opinions about both. If you want to understand who lives here, stand in the pancake line.

Second, the Outhouse Races are back. This is a rural-Colorado tradition that most Front Range communities have quietly retired. Black Forest has not, and the fact that it survives says something about the community's tolerance for keeping its own weird traditions intact.

The parade is short. Plan accordingly.

The parade lines up at the Shoup and Black Forest intersection and moves along a route you can walk in ten minutes. If you have kids under six, the pony rides and petting zoo will hold their attention longer than the parade itself. If you have out-of-town family visiting, the wool-spinning demonstrations are the thing to point them at. They are exactly the kind of small-scale rural craft that people assume died out in this part of El Paso County and did not.

Attendance is worth calibrating. The festival is attended by thousands of people every year, which by Black Forest standards is significant volume on two-lane roads. If you live along Milam or Vollmer, expect traffic to back up between 9:00 AM and noon. If you are trying to leave the neighborhood Saturday morning to run errands in Monument or north Colorado Springs, go before 8:00 AM or plan to wait until after 1:00 PM.

The unofficial afterparty is a pine block on wheels

Once the festival grounds start breaking down, the crowd shifts a mile and a half south to Black Forest Brewing Company at 11590 Black Forest Rd, #50. This is the part of the weekend that has grown organically over the last few years and is now, for a lot of residents, the actual social peak.

The draw is the 2026 Pinewood Derby, which begins shortly after the Black Forest Festival on Saturday, August 8th. This is the adult version. Derby kits went to Stammtisch members starting July 10 at $5 and to the general public July 17 at $10, with car registration and official weigh-in running July 24 through August 5. If you missed registration, come anyway. Half the crowd is there to watch, not race.

The rules are strict enough to be entertaining. Maximum length 7 inches, maximum width 2¾ inches, maximum weight 5 ounces, and wheel bearings, washers, and bushings are not permitted, cars may not ride on springs, and only dry lubricant is allowed. If you have ever wondered how competitive your neighbors get about a gravity-powered block of wood, this is the answer.

Where to eat if you are not doing the pancake line

The festival food vendors are fine. The neighborhood's actual kitchens are better, and most residents split the day between the two. Here is the short list, in the order you are likely to hit them.

Black Forest Bistro, at 6750 Shoup Road, is the closest sit-down restaurant to the festival grounds. Chef Deanna Johnson runs it, and her track record includes winning the Food Network's "Food Truck Fan Fight" in 2018 with the Black Forest Chew-Chew before she bought the log cabin on Shoup and converted it. Note the current hours are compressed: Thursday 5:00 to 7:00 PM, Friday and Saturday 5:00 to 8:00 PM, closed Sunday through Wednesday. That means a Saturday-night post-festival reservation is the play, and you should book it earlier in the week, not the morning of. The dining room is small.

Mountain View Cafe and Catering is the breakfast alternative for anyone skipping the pancake picnic. If you are hosting family and want a table with actual chairs and coffee refills instead of a lawn and a paper plate, this is where to send them at 7:00 AM.

Firehouse On The Run covers the barbecue side of the weekend. If your Saturday-night plan is takeout on a porch instead of a table at the Bistro, this is the call.

Between these three and the brewery, you can spend the entire weekend eating within a two-mile radius of the Community Center without repeating a kitchen.

Why the corner of Black Forest and Shoup matters more than you think

Most Front Range communities of Black Forest's size have lost their civic center. The post office moved, the general store closed, the grange hall got sold. Black Forest still has one, and it is the log building at Black Forest and Shoup. The Black Forest Community Club was chartered in 1929 as a social organization for families living in the Black Forest north of Colorado Springs, has 224 member families today, and occupies a community-built log building at the corner of Black Forest and Shoup Roads that turns 100 in 2027.

That is unusual for a Front Range community of this population, and it is the reason the festival still functions as a community event instead of a marketing exercise. Black Rose Acoustic Society concerts run out of the same building. The New Horizons Band of Colorado Springs plays there. The line-dance classes, the club meetings, the Scout troops all use it. When residents ask what makes Black Forest feel like Black Forest instead of a subdivision that happens to sit under some pines, this is the specific answer: one building, one intersection, one weekend a year when the whole community walks to the same corner.

Membership in the Community Club is $15/year, which is the cheapest civic investment available in this zip code. If you have lived here more than a year and are not a member, the Biergarten on Friday night is the place to sign up.

One practical note before Saturday

If you are new to Black Forest, or you moved in after the 2013 fire and have not been to the festival before, treat this weekend as the shortcut to knowing your neighbors. The pancake line, the Biergarten lawn, and the brewery Pinewood Derby crowd are, in that order, the three highest-density social events on the Black Forest calendar. Miss all three and you will spend another year not quite plugged in. Hit all three and you will know more people in the neighborhood by Sunday morning than you did on Thursday.

The team at John Chudzinski at Strategic Property Advisors lives and works in these Pikes Peak communities year-round, and we track the events, businesses, and civic institutions that shape day-to-day life here. If you have questions about the Black Forest market, or you simply want a straight read on how this community operates before you make any decisions about your home, request a market consultation.