The Chicken Dance broke the ice.

Even people who didn’t have the faintest idea how to polka left their seats and joined the merriment when the band at St. John’s Oktoberfest began playing the familiar tune.

The Saturday evening festival drew more than 2,000 people to St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church for authentic German food, beer, dancing and children’s activities.

“It’s just a good party,” said Joe Casad, who lives near the church and tries to make it to Oktoberfest every year.

Tim Keller, event chairman, said the food was what made the annual festival, now in its sixth year, so popular.

“We start from scratch,” he said.

Often using family recipes passed down through generations, volunteers prepare 800 bierocks, 400 pounds of German potato salad, 500 pounds of sauerkraut, 500 schnitzels and 1,000 bratwurst.

Judging by the lines, the cooks must have done a good job. Baldwin resident Tamara Starkey sure thought so.

“The food was great,” she said. “The brats were wonderful.”

Starkey was standing in line with her 6-year-old daughter, Mickayla, who was waiting for the Balloon Man to twist her an air-filled creation.

“I did the Chicken Dance,” Mickayla said, beaming proudly.

Added mom: “She had her first boy ask her to dance, and she turned him down.”

A few of the women at the festival wore traditional German dirndls, and a few of the men were decked in Bavarian hats and knickers resembling lederhosen.

Even Father Charles Polifka wore a traditional German hat. He gripped a stein of beer in one hand and used his other arm to swing partners during the Chicken Dance.

Proceeds from the event go to the St. John’s School capital campaign and the church’s tithing fund. It took about 100 volunteers to make this year’s Oktoberfest a success.

“We’re just trying to do kind of a family-oriented evening,” Keller said. “We’re just really trying to have fun.”