FRESNO FOOD CHAIN FESTIVAL

FRESNO FOOD CHAIN FESTIVAL

Fresno is home to the nation’s biggest food festival, which takes place every May. It began in the 1970s as an annual company party for McDonald’s employees working at the first franchised McDonald’s in the country. Owner, Ray Kroc, celebrated the restaurant’s success with an event every year at his original store on Blackstone and Shields Avenues in Fresno, California.

It started as a day of free food and socializing for employees and quickly grew to include customers, who could comefor games, coupons and freebees, or to get their pictures taken with Ronald McDonald and shake hands with Ray Kroc. In 1976, to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the tenth store, friends of Kroc, Walt Disney and fast food giant, Harland Sanders, attended the festival, signing autographs and posing for photos with customers, an event that is immortalized with autographed pictures and video footage in the Fresno History Museum.

The tradition carried on after Kroc’s death in 1984 and expanded in 1985 when Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr., Baskin Robbins, and In-N-Out Burger—all California-based fast food chains—joined the festivities to honor Kroc’s legacy. Today, over sixty chain restaurants prop tents along Blackstone Avenue for the three day festival, which celebrates their 1940s and 1950s start-up histories and the ingenuity that’s helped them thrive across the country.

Every year, Albert Okura, who purchased the original McDonald’s in San Bernadino in 1998, donates items from the historic, Route 66 McDonald’s museum for display at the festival. Until 2010, this collection included a framed photo of Kroc, Disney, and Sanders from the Fresno McDonald’s ten-year party, which now hangs in the Fresno McDonald’s on Blackstone Avenue. The Route 66 McDonald’s museum is also the site of the original Juan Pollo, famous for their rotisserie chicken, which they ship hundreds of to the festival each year for the Juan Pollo booth and chicken auction.

Today, festival goers from all over the world can still meet and get pictures with classic food chain personalities like Ronald McDonald and Wendy, and recent years have brought special guests like Jarred, from Subway; Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, Hannah Ferguson and Paris Hilton, from Carl’s Jr. commercials; and All Pro Eating Competitive Eaters, Molly Schuyler and Jamie “The Bear” McDonald.

The food eating contests are the largest festival attraction. There are over fifty eating competitions every year where contestants can vie to eat the most Taco Bell bean burritos, buckets of KFC fried chicken, or Jack in the Box tacos. Or, they can take the Double Down Challenge, consuming five sandwiches—ten friend chicken patties, five hamburger patties, fifteen strips of bacon, plus barbeque sauce and pepper dressing—in under ten minutes.

In recent years, the Taco Bell booth has become a popular draw because Fresno is a frequent test market for new Taco Bell menu items. Festival attendees, like food critics, journalists and fast food enthusiasts, visit the booth to try experimental items before they’re released to the public, like Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos taco, that has a shell coated with the nacho-cheese flavoring of Frito Lay’s Doritos, or the Fried Breakfast Waffle Taco, which consists of a waffle, folded in half, stuffed, taco-style, with egg and sausage, and then fried to artery-clogging perfection. The Pepsi booth is also an event favorite that’s brought special guests like NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, New Orleans Saints quarterback, Drew Brees, and musical artists Janet Jackson and Brittney Spears.

Some attendees come just to walk down Blackstone past all the colorful booths and street performers juggling, handing out balloon animals, and playing card tricks. Many of the tents offer samples, raffles, and drawings. The tables are lined with goodie bags and stuffed with coupons, fliers, t-shirts, pencils, mugs, stickers, and post cards. Food chains celebrate their landmarks—openings, closeouts, and sales achievements—with the public, sharing one-time-only items and giveaways. Year round, local franchise owners work to prepare their booths for the thousands of visitors that come to Fresno for the festival each spring.