Weekend food festivals across Georgia: Milledgeville, Kennesaw, and Acworth draw crowds

Thousands filled downtown Milledgeville on Saturday, October 17, for the 23rd annual Deep Roots Festival, and they stayed from roughly 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. — a full day, not a fairground stop.

The same Saturday, two other Georgia towns threw their own fall food parties: Kennesaw's Pigs & Peaches, now in its 26th year, and Acworth's Taste of Acworth. Each built the day around a different appetite.

Milledgeville's homecoming

More than a hundred vendors and downtown businesses set up across the festival's zones — an Artist Market, a Commercial Corridor, Food Truck Row, a KidZone, and the Deep Roots Open Car Show.

Food Truck Row did the feeding side: fresh lemonade, funnel cakes, hot dogs, Polish sausage, street tacos, stuffed turkey legs, seafood boils. The Open Car Show, presented by the Old Capital Car Club, filled a street with more than a hundred antique and vintage vehicles, and a steak cook-off sanctioned by the Steak Cookoff Association put up more than $3,000 in cash prizes.

Music started early and ran into the night: a headlining set from Clayton Nile Young's alternative country, bluegrass, and folk, with The Psycodelics, Sweet Tea Pedigree, Jay Wingfield & The Blaq Berry Band, Steppin' Out, the Tropical Breeze Steel Drum Band, the Georgia College & State University Jazz Band, and local school choruses. Georgia College & State University's College of Arts and Sciences ran a tent of live faculty and student demonstrations from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

"Deep Roots has such a tremendous impact not only on our downtown businesses, but on our city as a whole," said Jennifer Stasney, director of Milledgeville's Main Street and Downtown Development Authority, which presents the festival.

The event began in 2004 as the Sweetwater Festival, adopted the Deep Roots name in 2009, and has kept admission free throughout.

Kennesaw's cook-off

Pigs & Peaches took over Main Street and Depot Park on Friday evening and all day Saturday, with free admission and a separately ticketed barbecue tasting that is scarce by design. Only 300 tickets — $35 apiece — went on sale for the noon-to-3 p.m. tasting window in the Smoke Ring Zone at the Depot Park parking lot.

Each ticket bought a barbecue sample, an "Anything Peach" creation, and a Sweet Baby Ray's wing entry, plus a vote in the People's Choice Award. Cash prizes went to the top three cook teams.

Saturday's music at the United Bankshares Amphitheater in Depot Park closed with Chayce Beckham at 8 p.m., after the country duo Tigirlily Gold at 6 p.m.

The festival traces back to 2000, when the city's Parks & Recreation Department put on a small blues concert with an amateur barbecue cook-off.

Acworth's restaurant tour

Taste of Acworth ran Main Street in the Historic Downtown District from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, with free admission and restaurant samples generally priced from $1 to $10. Organizers expected about 18,000 visitors.

The City of Acworth, the Acworth Business Association, and JRM Management host the event each year, and organizer JRM Management described more than 120 booths. Two live-entertainment stages anchored the day, along with a dog show, a beer garden, a Georgia Grown Member Village of roughly 20 to 25 Georgia-made and Georgia-sourced members, and a children's zone with inflatables, quad bungees, and games.

Three towns, one Saturday, three different answers to what a Georgia fall food festival should be: Kennesaw's barbecue competition, Acworth's bite-by-bite tour of its restaurants, and Milledgeville's 23-year homecoming on Main Street. All three kept admission free — and if you missed them, next October is worth putting on the calendar.