Kentucky State Fair vendors prepare to feed 600K visitors across 11 days
LOUISVILLE, Ky. —
While not his busiest time of year, Chris Henson, who owns six different food stalls around the fairgrounds, is still ready to make an epic amount of food for the Kentucky State Fair.
“Here at the fair, we will go through about 1,200 pounds of fish and about 10,000 or so pounds of chicken,” Henson said.
From corn dogs covered in Hot Cheetos to footlong hot dogs called “The Heart Burn,” for many, the thrill of the fair is not getting something to eat but the novelty of what they eat. Mark Pohl, owner of the Kentucky Proud cookie stall Sweet Bucket Cookies, found this out last year when he introduced “The Cookie Bucket.”
“We did 25,000 cookies by hand last year,” Pohl said. “So, it was a long 10 days, but it was the best 10 days of the year.”
With an estimated 600,000 people set to visit the Expo Center over the 11 days of the fair, Henson thinks the trick to a successful fair is not about cooking or how much you have; it’s about getting people their food.
“We are often 40 people deep,” Henson said. “So, if you have two, three, four registers going, you have to move these lines quickly, and our average time is less than a minute per customer.”
The Kentucky State Fair runs through Aug. 30.
