Food lovers and culinary enthusiasts will sample bites, wines, cocktails and spirits from the local culinary scene when the Craft Food and Wine Festival returns to Memphis at the Brooks Museum of Art on Sunday, Sept. 6.
Now in its seventh year, the festival will bring together more than 35 local food vendors, chefs and artisans inside the museum for an evening designed to showcase the people and businesses contributing to the city’s growing and diverse food culture.
“It’s a farmers market where you can taste everything,” said Cristina McCarter, the festival’s creator and owner of Feast & Graze, a cheese and charcuterie business inspired by the success of the first festival that now offers catering, artisanal lunch meals, grazing tables and a charcuterie bar.
General admission for the two-hour festival starts at 5 p.m. at the museum and is restricted to guests 21 and older. Valid identification is required at check-in. Tickets are $75 and include food and beverage tastings, along with live entertainment and a DJ. Early admission for VIP ticket holders begins at 4 p.m.
The food festival, launched in 2019 with cheeseboard displays to highlight local artisanal products, has gained a sizable following. Earlier festivals drew crowds of 300 to 1,000, and average annual attendance has now reached 500 people, McCarter said.
The festival also provides a platform for local food entrepreneurs, or “foodpreneurs” as McCarter describes them. These include vendors who have built businesses that may not fit a traditional on-premise food model, often operating without a brick-and-mortar restaurant or food truck.
These specialty food entrepreneurs, along with independent chefs and makers, are given a chance to showcase their products and learn how prospective customers respond, imparting a sense of connection that has been an important feature of the festival since its inception. And it allows attendees to put faces to some of the local brands they may already know.
“And that’s how Memphis works,” McCarter said. “It’s a community of people. We all inspire each other.”
For VIP guests, the experience begins an hour earlier with a champagne welcome reception and access to a private lounge with seating, exclusive wine tastings and a special menu prepared by Chef Josh of JEM Dining.
For its part, the festival comes during the museum’s final days in its longtime Overton Park home as the 110-year-old institution prepares to move in December to its new riverside location in downtown Memphis. Soon to be renamed the Memphis Art Museum, it is the largest and oldest museum of its kind in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.
For McCarter, the festival grew from a love of planning and curating experiences and bringing people together through food. The annual event may also move downtown with activities for the entire weekend, she said, as it remains an extension of the work she has built around food and hospitality while making room for Memphis entrepreneurs to be seen.
“We’re all out here doing amazing things,” McCarter said. “And I just want to be able to showcase it.”
The 7th annual Craft Food and Wine Festival is slated for 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6, at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1934 Poplar Ave. VIP admission begins at 4 p.m.
Tickets and festival information are available here.
