8 can’t-miss food festivals in Ohio

“It’s very popular,” says Kelly Miller, executive director of the Waynesville Area Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the Ohio Sauerkraut Festival, an October event whose large, juried crafts market is popular for early holiday shopping. “Travelers from all over the country come in for the weekend.”

Here are 8 of Ohio’s favorite food festivals.

The country’s oldest maple festival began in 1926 when a local merchant sought to hype Ohio’s syrup production. The local product occupies a place of honor at the all-you-can-eat Pancakes in the Park, a festival highlight held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Indulge in maple stirs (using syrup warmed by stirring to create your own maple candy), sample maple products, and cheer contestants in the wheeled bathtub races down Main Street. Other events include carnival rides, a baking contest, parades with floats and marching bands, tractor pulls, and an arts-and-crafts show.

Festival details: April 25–28, Historic Chardon Square. Free admission. Free shuttle available from the Sheetz convenience store on Saturday and Sunday.

Ohio Magazine readers have voted this annual berry blowout as the Best Ohio Festival 3 times—and not just for the featured fruits. “People look forward to the Strawberry Festival each year because it kicks off the summer,” says Kathi Roetter, executive director of the sponsoring Troy Area Chamber of Commerce.

All the food booths support nonprofits. Troy Schools Music Boosters make doughnuts with locally grown strawberries. Other vendors offer the fruits in standards such as shortcake or even deep-fry them.

Craft vendors showcase wares that include ceramics, clothing, and wood crafts. Live music and participatory events like cardio drumming and Zumba occur on 3 stages. Watch a strawberry pie–eating contest and bring home fresh berries.

Festival details: June 1–2, downtown and along the Great Miami River Levee in Troy. Free admission. Free parking and shuttle from the Miami County Fairgrounds.

By developing the first commercially successful tomato, seed merchant Alexander Livingston put this Columbus suburb on the map as “The Birthplace of the Tomato.” About a century later, his work inspired this annual event that debuted in 1966 with a tomato fight between political parties. Tomato Wars continues to pit teams of 5 in a dodgeball-like competition.

The festival delivers awards for tomato growers in several categories and hosts a spaghetti-eating contest. The pizza contest is a real deal: $5 gets you a slice from each participating shop, a drink, and a vote for your favorite. Pick up tomatoes to bring home after perusing craft vendors, whirling on carnival rides, and catching free concerts by big-name talent—En Vogue and the Gin Blossoms performed in 2023.

Festival details: August 8–10, Huber Park. Free admission. Free parking at Huber Park, JFK Park, and the YMCA; a shuttle runs every 30 minutes at the Reynoldsburg High School Livingston Campus.

To signal the annual celebration of this tasty, smelly flowering plant, a giant faux garlic bulb goes up in Shaker Square, a shopping district built in 1929 that is now Ohio’s oldest. The festival, launched in 2008, is a major fundraiser for the nonprofit North Union Farmers Market, which draws Northeast Ohio farmers to urban locations.

The highlight is free samples for the audience after the Top Chef Garlic Grill Offs competitions that combine garlic with Ohio meats—grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, pasture-raised pork—or vegetables. Food vendors sell garlic bulbs and garlic-enhanced creations such as fries, pierogies, pickles, and ice cream (better than it sounds!).

A ceremony crowns the teenage Miss Garlic, and entertainers from belly dancers to funk bands perform.

Festival details: August 24–25, Shaker Square. Admission, $10 per day. Free on-street parking near Shaker Square is limited.

A late-summer tradition in Millersport, about 30 miles east of Columbus, this 4-day festival has been run by the town’s Lions Club since 1947. It’s a fundraiser for Central Ohio nonprofit and charitable organizations that help operate the festival’s food concessions and games.

Carnival rides, pony rides, tractor pulls, and shopping for arts and crafts are all part of the fun, along with concerts by major acts. Corn is trucked in by semi-trailer, so expect corn-eating and corncob-toss contests and goodies such as corn nuggets and hot-buttered corn on the cob.

Festival details: August 28–31, Lions Park. Free admission. Parking, $10.

If your Labor Day plans include checking out Lake Erie’s lighthouses, stop by this town’s annual holiday celebration of locally grown muskmelons and watermelons. The fruits get painted, displayed, and otherwise honored with a parade, a classic-car show, performances by local bands, carnival rides, and the crowning of a Miss Milan Melon Festival Queen. The festival, founded in 1958, also hosts one of Ohio’s oldest 5K road races.

Watermelon sherbet and cantaloupe ice cream made by Sandusky’s historic Toft Dairy is available only at the festival. Peruse the arts-and-crafts booths near the public library and buy melons to take home. Be sure to view the entrants in the melon-themed home-decorating contest as you drive through town.

Festival details: August 30–September 2, downtown. Free admission. Free parking and shuttle from Edison High School.

In the historic Miami County village of Waynesville (founded in 1797), this cabbage celebration started in 1970 as a sidewalk sale with a sauerkraut dinner. Today, some 11,000 pounds of sauerkraut prepared by Frank’s Kraut in Fremont, Ohio (near Lake Erie) arrives by semitruck. Sauerkraut features in everything from pizza to fudge to raise funds for more than 45 nonprofits.

Volunteers from St. Augustine’s Church make more than 12,000 cabbage rolls. Prizes are awarded for the biggest head of cabbage and best homemade sauerkraut. The festival’s other big attraction is the twice-juried crafts show featuring more than 450 vendors from across the U.S.

Festival details: October 12–13, Main Street. Free admission. Parking, $5 (includes a shuttle from Wayne Local High School).

Since 1903, Ohio’s oldest festival has filled the downtown streets of this city of about 12,000, 25 miles south of Columbus. During the annual 4-day event, visitors may choose from some 300 food booths and up to 30 amusement rides. But the main event is to eat pumpkin pie and see the winner of the largest-pumpkin contest. In 2023, vendors sold more than 23,000 pies and the pumpkin winner weighed a record-breaking 2,388.5 pounds.

Taste pumpkin in doughnuts, cookies, burgers, taffy, ice cream, cream puffs, and more. Watch a hog-calling contest, admire parades featuring dozens of bands and floats, and check out a massive display of more than 100,000 pounds of pumpkins, squash, and gourds. Don’t miss the giant 400-pound pie prepared annually by Lindsey’s Bakery.

Festival details: October 16–19, downtown. Free admission. Limited free public parking.

Cleveland-based travel writer Fran Golden’s work regularly appears in such leading publications as Bloomberg and Travel + Leisure. She is the author of numerous cruise and travel books, including 100 Things to Do in Alaska Before You Die (Reedy Press).