The corner of Fourth Avenue and Fourth Street will transform into a festival spotlighting local Tucson food, products and art starting Friday.
Fourth Avenue Food Fest is a weekly event that will combine your favorite flavors from local farmers’ markets on a more high-energy canvas. The event is a collaboration between CakeLab, a Fourth Avenue bakery, and FoodInRoot, a Tucson nonprofit that organizes many of the local farmers’ markets.
“The festival will be concert-esque and have a more lively atmosphere than a farmers’ market,” said Clayton Kammerer, founder of FoodInRoot.
Each week, different local bands will take the stage in front of CakeLab and provide visitors with live entertainment. Kammerer chose each band because they have all played at bars and clubs around Fourth Avenue.
“We’ve done markets in town for a long time,” said George Wyckoff of Grammy’s Garden, a local produce company that has been at Tucson’s farmers’ markets for twelve years. “CakeLab originally proposed the idea [for a market downtown] … so I thought [it] sounds like a great idea.”
CakeLab and FoodInRoot have not disappointed in getting a large variety of food vendors to participate. Grammy’s Garden is selling produce from its 40-acre property in Cochise, Ariz., along with jams, jellies and other canned goods from its commercial kitchen.
Gloria Badilla of Chilittepica Salsa is providing the market with delectable salsas. Chilittepica Salsa is made with all local Tucson ingredients and can also be found for sale at other local businesses such as Food Conspiracy Co-op on Fourth Avenue. Other Fourth Avenue staples, like Revolutionary Grounds Books and Coffee, will also be participating in the festival.
The Food Fest is also spotlighting other vendors who make a different kind of food.
“We realize that people like scents when it comes to body care products, but our main purpose is the benefits to the skin,” said Leighton Jeffy of Sapient Soap and Sundries. “It’s quite literally food for the skin. All of the fruits and the herbs we use in our soaps have very particular benefits to the skin.”
Sapient Soap and Sundries’ line of soaps, body butters and lotions are all based on homemade recipes that use local ingredients as opposed to artificial scents. Jeffy and Betsy Mahaffey make all of their products in their Tucson home. They extract scents and beneficial compounds from more than fifty herbs and flowers. Some of Sapient Soap’s most popular products, like Alighieri’s Apple Soap and their Vanilla Body Butter, will be available for sale at the festival.
“Summer is a great time to start events because of the slower rhythm in Tucson,” Kammerer said. “It’s a great time to get the kinks worked out and grow that momentum so it’s in full swing when the students return.”
Fourth Avenue Food Fest will be from 4-8 p.m. and will continue every Friday.
