LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For the first time in three years, the St. Patrick’s Parade will roll down the streets of Louisville. 

John O’Dwyer, the parade coordinator, spent his Friday checking on preparations for the event that was canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The worst day ever was when I had to go downtown and tell everybody we couldn’t do the parade in 2020,” he said. 

Spectrum News 1 talked to business owners the day before St. Patrick’s Day that year, after the governor ordered all restaurants close their sit-down service. 

“We wait from one end of the year to the other for it to come around—but we just have to accept the situation,” said Donal Ryan, the owner of Molly Malone’s, in a March 2020 interview.

This year’s parade theme is “The Return of St. Patrick” and even snow in the forecast won’t stop the show, said O’Dwyer. 

“Right now, we’re going,” he told Spectrum News 1. “There’s no turning this thing around. It will be like taking a battleship down Baxter Avenue and trying to do a U-turn with it. You just can’t do it.”

The crew at Flanagan’s Ale House ordered three trailers full of beer, and they expect it to be their biggest weekend of the year. 

“My family and I, we bought the bar actually March 4 of 2020, ten days before the shutdown of everything, so we missed out on the past two years, so this is my first parade,” said Drew Borgmann, the bar’s owner. 

The parade will have more participants than ever and some sponsors that opened during the pandemic, said O’Dwyer. 

“People want this parade, they need the parade and we’re going to give it to them,” he said. 

The parade kicks off Saturday at 3 p.m.

It starts at Broadway and Baxter, travels down Bardstown Road, and ends at Windsor Place near Cherokee Parkway.