Country Fair Entertainment Park in Medford closes permanently
The Country Fair Entertainment Park in Medford announced it won't reopen for the 2024 season. Credit: Randee Daddona
Country Fair Entertainment Park in Medford has shut down permanently.
The announcement was made public Wednesday after employees learned Tuesday that the park, which closed for the 2023 season in October, will not reopen in 2024, says Nichole Hausch, manager.
“We thought we would reopen but the owners had other plans,” says Hausch, who has worked at the park since 2009.
The outdoor park’s go-karts, mini golf, batting cages, driving range, laser tag and arcade will all be shuttered. “It’s not going to be an entertainment park again. There’s going to be something else here,” Hausch says. She does not know what that something else might be, she said.
Cathy Ann LoSchiavo, a board member of the Medford Chamber of Commerce, who said she was giving her personal opinion, said she was “very upset” about the closure.
LoSchiavo, 66, has lived in Medford her whole life and had her daughter’s 5-year-old birthday party at the park more than 35 years ago.
“I think it’s absolutely terrible,” she said of the change. “It’s a loss of tradition and community. It’s an institution people have been going to for years.”
The park’s website thanks visitors for their patronage at the current iteration, which has been operational for 23 years, as well as others in its history since the 1970s. It instructs people with Fun Cards, used to purchase food, games or attractions at the park, to contact the park by Jan. 31.
Hausch said she also contacted summer camps that were planning to visit Country Fair this summer, including Driftwood Day Camp in Melville, Park Shore Day Camp in Dix Hills and the YMCA camps on Long Island.
“As a travel camp, we’ve been going there for years. It’s going to be a loss,” says Bob Budah, a director of Park Shore Day Camp. “It was a summer destination that the kids enjoyed.”
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
