Waukesha Launches 'Best of the Best' Awards; Downtown Boutiques Celebrate With Fresh 'Closing Sale' Signs

WAUKESHA — The Waukesha Freeman announced the inaugural "Best of the Best of Waukesha County" awards program this week, inviting residents to nominate their favorite local businesses and services across categories including dining, retail, and professional services. Voting opened Monday on the paper's website and runs through the end of the month, with winners to be announced at a celebration event in mid-October at a venue the Freeman says is "still being finalized."

Participating establishments include Piggly Wiggly, Culver's, and a broad cross section of downtown boutiques, several of which greeted the nomination period by taping fresh "Going Out of Business" and "Everything Must Go" signage into their front windows within 48 hours of the announcement.

"Honored And Humbled"

Patricia Englehard, 58, owner of a home-goods boutique on West Main Street that has displayed some variation of closing signage in its front window continuously since March 2024, said she was "honored and humbled" by the nomination opportunity.

"We just installed a new 'Going Out of Business' sign, so this award means we can at least say we were nominated before we close."

— Patricia Englehard, boutique owner

Englehard's shop has been formally nominated in the "Best Home Décor" category by, according to the Freeman's public nomination tally as of Thursday afternoon, four people, two of whom she believes are her sister. She said the sign currently in the window, printed on red card stock and reading "FINAL DAYS - EVERYTHING 40% OFF," is the shop's fifth distinct closing sign since she opened in 2019, following signs that read "Moving Sale," "Retirement Sale," "Lease Ending," and a fourth sign that simply said "Sale" in a font she described as "not our usual font, which should have told people something."

A Category For Everyone

The Freeman's awards span 31 categories, from Best Burger to Best Dry Cleaner to a newly added Best Escape Room, reflecting what a Freeman spokesman described as an effort to "cast as wide a net as possible" in its first year. Categories can be nominated for by any Waukesha County resident with a valid email address, and a business may be nominated in more than one category, a provision Englehard's boutique has taken advantage of by appearing in both "Best Home Décor" and "Best Customer Service," the latter nomination submitted, she confirmed, by herself.

A Freeman spokesman said early participation numbers "show how vibrant Waukesha's small-business community really is," citing 214 total nominations across all categories in the program's first three days. The spokesman did not have a figure readily available for what percentage of nominated storefronts currently display active closing, liquidation, or "we've moved" signage, saying only that the newspaper "doesn't track that specifically" and that doing so "wasn't really the intent of the program."

Voting Through September, Trophies In October

Voting closes September 30, after which the Freeman says results will be tabulated and finalists notified individually before the mid-October celebration event, where winners in each of the 31 categories will receive a printed certificate and, for an additional fee, a window decal reading "Best of the Best of Waukesha County, 2026." Englehard said she has already budgeted for the decal regardless of outcome, on the theory that it would look "nice next to the sign," and that between the two, "at least one of them tells people we're still here."