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PEORIA (25News Now) - The second annual Pickle Peoria festival wrapped up at the Shoppes at Grand Prairie this weekend, drawing record crowds for two days of pickle-themed food, crafts, and live entertainment.
Organizers said the event surpassed last year’s total attendance of more than 3,000 people in just the first day alone.
Local food trucks and vendors served pulled pork, pasta, specialty dirty sodas, and pickle lemonades. Several vendors reported running out of ingredients due to high demand.
“[Saturday] was absolutely insane,” event organizer Ronda Foster said. “It’s our second year doing this and last year we thought was amazing, but this year was even better. We had food trucks, we have market vendors, we had music all day long, face painting for the kids. One of our food trucks had to actually DoorDash more food in because he ran out of food.”
Megan Otto, general manager of the Shoppes at Grand Prairie, said the event had been in the works for several years before its debut last year.
“Pickle Peoria is kind of a few years in the making,” Otto said. “We’ve seen pickle festivals in different areas around the country, and we hadn’t seen one here yet. So last year was our first year doing it. We tried it out. We learned some things and this year it’s even bigger and better.”
The two-day event was designed to bring families together and support small businesses as kids go back to school. Organizers said vendors are already signing up for the third annual Pickle Peoria next year.
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