The weather was damn near perfect last weekend when the 27th Annual Barbecue Festival took over the streets of Uptown Lexington. My wife and kids joined me on the Amtrak from Durham to Lexington (the one time a year the train stops there), and we were joined by dozens of other barbecue-happy passengers. We even met some New Yorkers on the train–they’d come down from Long Island to Lexington just for the Festival, which speaks to how big the event has gotten over the years. (Of course, maybe they were just trying to drown their Yankees’ baseball sorrows.)
And when I say the event has gotten big, I mean it. The Festival apparently drew a record crowd this year, with “more than 200,000” people in attendance according to the inexact-yet-official estimate. That estimate might sound like hyberbole but if you were there–and given how large a crowd it was I am guessing you were–then you’ll have no problem believing it. It was CROWDED, folks. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people in one place and I am not sure I care to again. But I did enjoy myself. And luckily I ate a BBQ sandwich before the tents sold out–at 4:00 p.m., two hours before the end of the event.
For excellent photos of the Festival, visit the website of Lexington’s daily, The Dispatch, by following this link and clicking on the October 24th festival gallery.
Filed under: 'Cue Culture | Tagged: Davidson County, Festivals, Lexington, Lexington style | 6 Comments »
BBQ Jew 