{"id":31416,"date":"2026-09-24T04:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T04:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/31416\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T04:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T04:06:12","slug":"from-freighthouse-to-fest-restaurant-owners-jon-and-jane-erickson-are-2026-festmaster-and-frau-for-la-crosses-oktoberfest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/31416\/","title":{"rendered":"From Freighthouse to Fest: restaurant owners Jon and Jane Erickson are 2026 Festmaster and Frau for La Crosse&#8217;s Oktoberfest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The secret is now out. La Crosse\u2019s 2026 Festmaster for Oktoberfest is Freighthouse restaurant owner Jon Erickson. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jon and his wife Jane made their public debut as the reigning couple of this year\u2019s fest at the Festmaster\u2019s Ball on Wednesday. Erickson tells us that back in April, on his daughter\u2019s birthday, he was visited by two past Festmasters, Mike Bakalars and Terry Cowgill, bearing an envelope from Forks and Corks, the summer event where the Oktoberfest button design is usually unveiled.  Jon has worked on that event, and he says \u201cI just thought they had some more information, seating, something like that, and they handed me the envelope,\u201d and inside, \u201cthere was my feather,\u201d indicating he had been selected as Festmaster.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How did the Erickson family react to the surprise?  Jon says they\u2019re \u201cvery excited,\u201d and Jane said \u201cthey had a lot of questions.  Right away, they were on-line, researching, trying to figure out what this all meant.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"771\" src=\"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2026-festmaster-car-1024x771.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-125449\"  \/>New Festmaster Jon Erickson and Frau Jane made their debut at a private party early this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oktoberfest volunteers were introduced to the new Festmaster and his Frau at a private event earlier in the week.  Jon Erickson\u2019s theme for his year as Festmaster is \u201cAll Aboard,\u201d which he says is a family motto, meaning that everyone is welcome to Oktoberfest.  He says they have had a favorite tradition for the Maple Leaf Parade.  \u201cThey would put chalk outlines on the road, and if someone stopped in there, you might place a bet on that, and that was always a great time,<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jon and Jane have helped with Oktoberfest in the past, through the Forks and Corks event. The new Festmaster says they have had a favorite tradition at the Maple Leaf Parade for years:<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tonight, the Ericksons will be part of the other fest parade, the Torchlight Parade in north La Crosse, marking the first night of the four-day Oktoberfest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The secret is now out. La Crosse\u2019s 2026 Festmaster for Oktoberfest is Freighthouse restaurant owner Jon Erickson. Jon and his wife Jane made their public debut as the reigning couple of this year\u2019s fest at the Festmaster\u2019s Ball on Wednesday. Erickson tells us that back in April, on his daughter\u2019s birthday, he was visited by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[399,113,7,8],"class_list":["post-31416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-restaurants","tag-business","tag-featured","tag-restaurant","tag-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dnc\/117324043007293470","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}