Most Oshkosh residents know a building changed on State Street. Fewer know how close it came to disappearing into an out-of-state auction.
In 2022, the former Oshkosh Northwestern building — a stone-columned structure built around 1912 — was scheduled to go up for bid at an auction house in New York the following day. Local company Team SNW, led by Director Kelsie Lally, bought it the night before. The plan from the start: a restaurant, then new commercial spaces, then a boutique hotel, all on the same block. The first phase opened late August 2025 as Truffle Pig. The hotel is still coming.
That sequence matters because it reframes what spring 2026 actually is in Oshkosh. This isn't a typical "what's happening" season. It's the first full spring after downtown's most visible physical change in years — with a 10-day craft beer celebration, a 64-year-old farm show, and a string of weekend anchors stacked between now and May. If you've been meaning to look up from your routine and check in on the city, this is the window.
Truffle Pig and the Building Behind It
Before you eat at Truffle Pig, walk past the stone columns on the way in. The building at 224 State St. dates to roughly 1912 and spent decades as the headquarters of the Oshkosh Northwestern newspaper. What Lally's team inherited — after saving it from auction — was a 50-by-150-foot space with a concrete floor, brick walls, steel trusses, and a series of groin vaults along a barrel-vaulted hallway. That's what became marble floors, a glass-encased wine vault, and a wood-fired pizza bar.
Executive Chef Cristiano Bassani was born in Bergamo, Italy, and brings 36 years of kitchen experience to the menu. His approach is deliberate restraint: handmade pastas, Tagliatelle alla Bolognese, Branzino alla Griglia, a candy-wrapper pasta finished tableside in a parmesan wheel. The beef tenderloin with truffle butter has drawn consistent attention in early reviews. Reservations book out, so plan ahead.
Hours are Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday from 4 to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 4 to 10 p.m. Closed Tuesday.
The revitalization project led by T.J. Rodgers — of which Truffle Pig is just the opening move — is expected to add new commercial spaces and a boutique hotel to the block. Oshkosh has seen restaurant openings before. It hasn't often seen a single building anchor a multi-phase urban investment like this one.
Craft Beer Week: April 2–12
The annual collaboration between Bare Bones Brewery, Fifth Ward Brewing Company, and Fox River Brewing Company returns April 2–12, 2026. Now in its fifth year as a 10-day event, Craft Beer Week centers on a limited City Wide brew that the three breweries create together — a different style each year, available only during the event window.
The collaboration itself is the draw, not just the beer. These are three independently run businesses that compete for the same tap handles year-round. The fact that they co-brew a shared release every spring — and that dozens of Oshkosh bars and restaurants pour it — reflects something about how the local food and drink community actually operates. The 2025 City Wide was a blueberry lime sour that landed on over 45 taps across the city. Each brewery runs its own specials throughout the week; Fox River Brewing has historically offered bucket deals, cornhole tournaments, and patio music on weekends.
If you haven't made a point of hitting all three breweries in a single April weekend, this is the reason to do it.
The Arena as a Neighborhood Anchor
The Oshkosh Arena at 1212 S. Main St. hosts more than concerts. The Wisconsin Herd — Oshkosh's NBA G League franchise — is closing out its home schedule this month, with games on March 20 and March 23. Multi-platinum rock band Bush plays the Arena on May 6, their only Wisconsin stop on the 2026 tour.
Less obvious but worth knowing: the Arena hosts the Oshkosh Farmers Market Winter Market every Saturday morning through early spring, with 50-plus vendors, live music, and themed weeks built around the calendar. The Easter market runs Saturday, April 18. It's a consistent Saturday-morning routine for a large part of the city, and it runs until the outdoor summer market picks back up.
For a smaller but equally reliable weekly anchor, The Grand Oshkosh downtown books live performances throughout the season. The 2025–2026 lineup includes national touring acts and community productions through spring.
Before the Crowds: Trails, a Zoo, and a Museum Worth Revisiting
The Wiouwash State Trail picks up north of downtown and runs through wetlands, prairie patches, stretches of forest, and open farmland. Late March and April are the quietest weeks on the trail before the summer crowd arrives. Birdwatchers use the wetland sections specifically during spring migration.
Menominee Park Zoo sits on eight acres along Lake Winnebago and is free to visit. Llamas, otters, and bald eagles are the consistent draws. It's the kind of place that Oshkosh residents visit once with out-of-town guests and then somehow don't go back to for years. This is a good time to go back.
At the Paine Art Center and Gardens, the exhibit Dancing with Life: Mexican Masks runs through May 17, 2026. The collection — four dozen historic and contemporary masks from the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture — is one of the more substantive traveling exhibitions the Paine has hosted this season. The gardens themselves come into bloom through April and May, which is a separate reason to visit.
The Fox River Riverwalk runs downstream from downtown along the river. Boats can dock directly at the Riverwalk and access downtown restaurants from the water. On a clear spring day, it's the most efficient way to understand why Oshkosh's downtown geography is actually worth something.
The Spring Calendar, Assembled
Here's what's clustered between now and mid-May for anyone keeping a running list:
March 20 — Wisconsin Herd vs. Motor City Cruise, Oshkosh Arena, 7 p.m.
March 23 — Wisconsin Herd vs. College Park Skyhawks, Oshkosh Arena, 6 p.m.
March 24–26 — 64th WPS Farm Show at Sunnyview Exposition Center. Roughly 400 exhibitors from across the U.S. and Canada showing farm equipment, technology, and services. Three days, free to the community.
March 28 — Breakfast with the Bunny, $5 per ticket, covers both breakfast and egg hunt.
April 2–12 — Oshkosh Craft Beer Week. Three breweries, one City Wide brew, 10 days.
April 18 — Farmers Market Easter Market, Oshkosh Arena, 9 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Through May 17 — Dancing with Life: Mexican Masks at the Paine Art Center and Gardens.
May 6 — Bush at Oshkosh Arena, 7 p.m.
The density here is real. Between the Farm Show, Craft Beer Week, and the Paine exhibit, there are legitimate reasons to be downtown or across town on nearly every weekend through mid-May. For residents who've been in a winter routine since November, this is the calendar that breaks it.
One More Thing Worth Knowing
The 8th annual Oshkosh Restaurant Week ran January 19 through February 1, 2026, with 35 participating restaurants — the largest field in the event's history. Prix-fixe menus ran $14 for breakfast, $18 for lunch, and $30 for dinner, with a new $42 premium dinner tier added this year. If you missed it, the same restaurants are open the rest of the year. Greene's Pour House at the Granary, Fox River Brewing, Becket's, and the 32 others that showed up for Restaurant Week aren't going anywhere.
What the Restaurant Week roster actually shows is that Oshkosh now has enough independent restaurants — across enough cuisines and price points — to fill a two-week prix-fixe event that residents will plan their calendar around. That's not a small thing for a city this size. Truffle Pig wasn't even part of the Restaurant Week lineup, which means the fine-dining tier has expanded without displacing what was already here.
If you're thinking about a change — whether that means buying your first place in Oshkosh, moving closer to downtown, or figuring out what your current home is worth in a market that keeps moving — the team at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Special Properties has been working this region for years. Get the Special Advantage — talk with our team today.
