Loomis Eggplant Festival

Typical small town festival. Taylor Blvd dual rows of street vendors. ACE Hardware downtown selling closeouts on the street. Behind the town along the park is another row of food vendors, bands, chidrens water works fountains to play in and 2 jump houses.

2019 marks the 32nd year of the Annual Loomis Eggplant festival. I've been attending this small town celebration since its humble beginnings. Back in the early days it was really lacking in its namesake and was more of a craft fair than anything else.The crafts are still here, but you can now actually purchase many dishes made from eggplant. It's taken awhile to get this festival dialed-in but now eggplant lovers (and those that are eggplant-curious) can finally get their fill. Hopefully the eggplant based offerings will continue to grow each year!Not a fan of eggplant or the color purple? Well, there are still many reasons to attend: - It's a free festival with plenty of free parking (unlike those $$$ Expo events).- Bouncy stuff to keep little ones happy, free live music and entertainment, cute furry critters to pet, chalk art & a pancake breakfast (if you get there early enough).Fun facts about the Purple People Eats-it:- Eggplant make a great meat substitute and has the added benefit of being high in fiber. It does a great job of absorbing oils and flavors. Who needs that "Impossible" stuff when you've got eggplant!- No, it's not a vegetable...it's a fruit. It's also a member of the very cool (and sometimes deadly) Nightshade family!...so eating eggplant is like living on the edge (not really but tell yourself this if you want to).- The flowers and leaves of the Eggplant can be poisonous if consumed in large quantities...so don't. Just sayin' ;-)

This year was amazing, live relaxing music, cute petting zoo, kids activities, fun face-in-hocutouts(see pic), Chalk Artists and plenty of food vendors offering Eggplant dishes to go along with the festival at decent prices! They also had lots of vendors selling gift related items, to get you started on your holiday shopping, and offered complimentary samples as well! I tried some deliciously flavorful Mandarin Olive Oil, Balsamic and sweet Orange Blossom Honey from the Colwell Thundering Herd Ranch booth and purchased some cards made by a local artist from the Cloudy Art Studio booth! As well as entered into their raffle to win some beautiful hand towels and cards! For lunch I ordered some deliciously flavorful and perfectly sauced Eggplant Lasagna from Rubinos Ristorante Booth and will definitely be checking out their restaurant in Rocklin now! I would highly recommend attending the festival and don't forget to pick up your free Eggplant before you leave, I cannot wait to try mine and see what next year has in store!

Loomis Eggplant Festival in downtown Loomis. Cute small town Festival to bring the kids and dogs. Plenty of parking just one block away. Open 10:00 to 5:00 today... free parking and free entry....Lots of vendors, three music stages, kids area and food trucks. Remember to get your free Eggplant from High-Hand Nursery and recipe. Only wish they had more local wineries by the smooth jazz area with small plates of food and a beer gartens area to relax with friends and listen to some country Rock music...Other then that cute low key fun Festival for all... Excited to cook my eggplant

My first time going to Loomis' Eggplant Festival. SO much happening.. but I didn't really come across any eggplant dishes. It was a lot of vendors and purple and eggplants but not so much eggplant dishes so I was kinda disappointed. It was a nice outing maybe just a celebration of harvest because there sure wasn't any eggplant. I got a sample of eggplant from American River College's Culinary Program and I kinda expected more like Garlic to Gilroy's Garlic Festival but no such luck. ARC's samples were good and parlaying that into promoting their program and Oak Cafe was brilliant. I enjoyed the live music and walking around Loomis but I expected more eggplant out of an eggplant festival.And the whole time I wasn't sure if where I parked was okay to be parked there. There were tow signs but other people parked there and I wasn't sure but I did it anyway and mentally prepared for what if I did happen to get towed..Anyway, more eggplant please.

I'm grateful the festival took place. Nice to see people enjoying their day in the sun. It was my First time attending this festival and I did have an eggplant expectation. Eggplant food? Overall, More food options. But there was nothing eggplant about this festival. Why is it called that?

My son's band played at this year's Eggplant Festival in Loomis, CA. Had it not been for his performance, we would have never known about this growing food festival. We enjoyed lots of eggplant foods such as eggplant pancakes with eggplant syrup, eggplant tacos with eggplant salsa and eggplant brownies. Street parking was difficult 1 hour before the start of the festival at 10am on a Saturday. It would be a great idea to attend early for sure. It wasn't super crowded and they had a good variety of vendors on hand. We'll definitely go back next year.

Honestly, there wasn't a whole lot of eggplant there. A bunch of booths, but I only saw two places actually selling eggplant.It's alright if you're into this kind of thing, but I'm really not.

I came here for the first time with my family. It was a very hot day. I tried the Loomis brewery beer that was the main stage. They had a citrus ale and a dark ale. Both or good and I had two of each. :-) The line was too long to try the fried eggplant so I just got fries from another area.I wished they was ice cold lemonade; there's nothing like having fresh lemonade on a hot day. Also, I wish there were more vegetarian food options for these festivals. Fries only go so far.

2012 was 25th Anniversary, this is a fun event for all ages. Free event. Great food, wine, beer & entertainment. Every year gets bigger & more fun!