Inspired by Patchogue’s ‘Alive After Five,’ Riverhead moves ahead with plans for summer evening street fairs

An evening street fair modeled after Patchogue’s popular “Alive After Five” event is coming to downtown Riverhead this summer.

The Riverhead Business Improvement District Management Association plans to allocate the largest portion of its budget this year to the new street fair, which will include outdoor dining on Main Street and live music on multiple stages.

Dates for the event are not yet set in stone, but it will take place on Thursday evenings every other week in July and August. It will alternate with Patchogue’s bi-weekly street fair so that the two events do not conflict with one another.

“We’re getting all the restaurants involved,” said Ray Pickersgill, Riverhead BID president. “I think it will be very successful.”

Downtown restaurants will set up tables along Main Street for outdoor dining. There will also be food trucks, vendors and live music at multiple stages.

The street fair will also coincide with Riverhead’s weekly summer car show on the riverfront. “That’s a big draw in the summer,” Pickersgill said in an interview yesterday. “I think it will be a pretty cool addition.”

Riverhead has been in talks with the Greater Patchogue Chamber of Commerce about partnering up for the event. Alive After Five has been a major force in Patchogue’s revitalization since the street fair was started 15 years ago, drawing tens of thousands of people to Patchogue every summer.

“Riverhead and Patchogue are sister communities in a lot of ways,” said David Kennedy, executive director of the Greater Patchogue Chamber of Commerce. “Our revivals seem to be based on similar things – craft beer, restaurants, theaters.”

Although Riverhead’s event probably won’t be using the “Alive After Five” name, which Patchogue’s chamber has trademarked, Kennedy said that a partnership between the two downtown communities would be “natural.”

“I’m hoping this could be the start of many different types of sharing of ideas and partnerships,” Kennedy said. “I think everybody here in Patchogue is very open to the idea and interested to explore this further.”

In addition to an evening street fair, Riverhead BIDMA plans to allocate money this year toward its weekly summer car show, the annual cardboard boat races, a fourth of July celebration, the JumpstART festival, a Paddle Battle event, the downtown indoor farmer’s market in the fall, the next annual Poe Festival and the annual holiday bonfire celebration in December.

It will spend a total of $80,501 on events this year, with $26,877 of that allocated to the street fair.

The Riverhead Business Improvement District is a special taxing district established by the Town of Riverhead in 1991 to help revitalize the downtown business district. Properties within the geographic boundaries of the district pay a special district tax. The Riverhead Town Board, which sits as the board of the BID, contracts with the Business Improvement District Management Association, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, to perform designated services. Each year, the town board approves the BIDMA’s proposed budget allocations.