HOTTAKE

Bring a to-go bag because delicious food items come at ya pretty fast. Great for Fair food lovers.

Stats

We were two Fair-loving adults with empty stomachs and a Saturday 9:00am ticket. That is the first time slot of the day so that may have factored in to the speed of our progress.

How long does the Minnesota State Fair Food Parade take?

We were done and headed home in about an hour and ten minutes after our reservation time. A friend, author Julie Kramer (read her books they’re awesome), went Friday at 11am and it took her about an hour and a half. Point is, with the number of tickets that they’ve sold, it seems it’s going pretty darn quickly. If (and that’s a big IF) they sell more tickets it might slow things down and that might be an okay thing.)

What’s traffic like getting to the Food Parade?

There’s apparently construction on Como to the south of the Fair, but we came from the north down Snelling and had zero delays getting to the entrance at Snelling and Hoyt. You wind around the property a bit so there is PLENTY of room if any backups were to happen. We got there 15 mins before our reservation time which was about perfect. Check in was a breeze and we lined up with the other cars.

Pro Tip

When you get there you can become a Friend of the Fair by supporting the State Fair Foundation and get a car flag. At the $100 donor level you also get early access to purchasing great seats for the 2021 Grandstand shows. If you were a 2020 Friend of the Fair you got access Food Parade tickets a day before they went on sale to the public. The point is, The Foundation hooks up their Friends. If you can afford it, it’s worth it to join and it supports the Fair. Win-Win.

While you wait

Folks from Second Harvest Heartland come by with carts and pick up your donations. You’re about to glutton yourself out on a bunch of food, seem like a fine opportunity to help families struggling with hygiene or food insecurities. Here is a list of SHH’s greatest needs to help you figure out what to bring to donate. We brought diapers and wipes.

The Menu

Use this brief wait time to review your Food Parade menu and make a plan. Two people probably cannot eat something from every stand; you need strategy people!

We Quickly Had More Food Than We Could Eat

We wanted items from seven of the first eight stands:

·     Turkey To Go 1/3 lb. Sandwich

·     Bag of Tom Thumb Donuts

·     32 oz. Fresh French Fries

·     Mouth Trap Cheese Curds

·     Giant Egg Roll On-a-Stick

·     Pronto Pup

·     Vanilla Malt

Because one person is constantly paying attention keeping up with the flow of traffic and buying food, there’s not a lot of time to invest in getting two hands around a sandwich. So the driver was in charge of driving and buying and the passenger was strategically arranging where to put the food and deciding what to eat.

What Got Eaten Right Away

So the way it shook out is that finger foods–donuts, fries, and cheese curds–were tapped into before the sandwich. In fact we ended up putting the Turkey To Go sandwich, Giant Egg Roll, and Duck Wontons directly into the padded grocery bag we brought as a warming bag (again, great tip Julie) and didn’t get around to eating them until we got home.

Some folks did find a little bit of road to stop and focus on eating their food but we’re rule followers and kept moving.

If I had a piece of advice for the AMAZING people who put this together and made something great out of nothing at all, it would be to offer cars the opportunity to break out for a couple of minutes so drivers can eat. But the alternative of having too many cars and waiting hours in line would’ve been terrible. They erred in the right direction. In my opinion, that knows nothing about the logistics that would be involved in doing this, I think they could open up some more tickets for the next two weekends and slow it down a little.

Final Thoughts

All things considered, I’m thrilled to fire up the air fryer over the next couple of days and crisp up the golden fried leftovers we brought home with us. And boy was my neighbor thrilled when we dropped of a 2/3 full bucket of Sweet Martha’s for she and her family.

Getting to attend the Minnesota State Fair Food Parade was a bright spot in what otherwise would’ve felt like an incomplete end to the summer. Well done Minnesota State Fair!