This Food Festival in History #2 Taste of Cincinnati
Hello and Welcome to today’s episode of This Food Festival in History! Today, we are looking at a festival that is apparently one of the largest outdoor food centric festivals in the states. Taste of Cincinnati.
This festival takes place over three days and is Memorial Day weekend every year. This puts it at the end of May which can give for unpredictable weather options. Sometimes it’ll be scorching, sometimes cold, dreary, or rainy, and sometimes like this year, a perfect day that is not too hot, not too cold, and I only needed a light jacket.
Taste of Cincinnati is a chance for food vendors and restaurants from the tricounty area (and further if we’re all being honest) to showcase their cooking and menu options out of booths and food trucks. The streets of Downtown Cincinnati are lined with shoulder to shoulder tents and spaces for trucks and more to hawk their offerings to festival goers. There’s also sponsors, and other vendors selling their products to visitors and getting the word out about their services.
2025 had over 70 different restaurants and food trucks participating, and a special section just for vendors from Findlay Market. Findlay market is Ohio’s oldest continuously operated public market according to their website and is a place that I am upset no one told me about. They host vendors that sell meat, produce, ethnic foods, flowers, and more and houses a farmers market on weekends. They also include live entertainment and events. The municipal market house is the only surviving location from nine that used to operate in the area in the 19th and 20th centuries. An officially registered historic place (since 1972), it was built in 1852 as an open sided pavilion. 1902 saw the addition of a masonry tower in the center and public health concerns had additions added to close off the location and add refrigeration and more changes soon after. It then went through more renovations, throughout the years, including in the 2000s. It sits on the donated estate of General James and Jane Findlay. Taste of Cincinnati gave them plenty of space to showcase many of these vendors and my text to a friend when I visited was how the tents were “bangers after bangers” of offerings.
Taste of Cincinnati started in 1979 with about 5000 attendees. It was located in Garfield Park, formerly known as Piatt Park. It only took 2 years for them to add another day to the festival in 1981. The final day was added in 1988 and the location changed from Piatt Park to Central Parkway in Downtown Cincinnati. In 2007, the Tyler Davidson Fountain Square was renovated and the festival moved there to take up Fifth Street and that has been its home ever since. They now cover about six blocks of Fifth Street and have 4 entertainment stages with the many restaurants and other vendor booths. The stages host musical talents across multiple genres for the guests to enjoy while sampling food and drinks.
This growth in offerings got Taste of Cincinnati selected as the Food Event of the Year by Events Business News, beating out 40,000 events across the states in 1997.
Besides the obvious marketing and opportunity to meet directly with guests and future customers, restaurants do have another point of pride and perk of participating. There’s a Best of Taste competition every year. Every booth gets to select a dish for several categories for the vote. They can choose between appetizers, soups and salads, seafood, entrees, vegetarian entree, desserts, and Best Dammed Dish which is the overall winner. Each category names their Best of Taste, Award of Excellence and an Award of Merit. The winners proudly display their awards in their booths and restaurants.
The festival is open for long hours to give the estimated half million attendees plenty of time to try as much as they can over three days. 12 hour days on Saturday and Sunday and a 9 hour day on Monday. I spent about 5 hours walking around and was so full from what I tried that I had to throw in the towel. I would recommend an average eater to either bring someone to eat half of every small plate or just plan to visit multiple days as there is no end to the good food and drinks you’ll want to try.
Taste of Cincinnati is a staple event and one that attracts so many people from all over to sample food, drinks, and music that the Queen City has to offer. This festival is worth the trip.
That was This Food Festival in History. I’m Soph and Thanks for watching, hit Like and subscribe for more!
