California Garlic Festival

We decided to come here on the last day of the festival. The festival itself seems small and it was a disappointment. We ended up getting food from the cali garlic alley. Here they offer garlic french fries, garlic mushroom & onion bread bowl, garlic pesto pasta and the garlic maple brown sugar ice cream. We opted getting both the garlic fries and garlic fries with bacon. Both didn't have a strong garlicky taste like the ones that you get at the county fair. There was no garlic aftertaste. As for the garlic maple brown sugar ice cream, you can hardly taste the garlic in it. It mostly tasted like the maple brown sugar. Besides the food from the cali garlic alley, they have other food vendors and also a few vendors selling items as well. There is a pageant show, cooking demos, the show & shine car show, photography exhibit, splash zone for the kiddos, monster truck rides and pony rides. Overall, we've been to better festivals and this one was not worth going to. It's their 2nd year for this festival and it was lacking. Hopefully next year would be much better but unfortunately we won't be attending the next garlic festival event.

As newcomers to Northern California, we had heard a lot of great things about the region's annual garlic festival. After all of the hardships and setbacks since the tragedy in 2019, we were excited to hear it would finally be back this year. Even though it would be taking place in a different city this time, we decided to make the 80 mile drive to show our support. The best thing I can say for the festival is that I think a lot of people probably put effort into making it happen and wanted it to go great. Maybe there's a learning curve with these things. But that being said, it must have been a completely different organization running the festival in stockton because it was pretty underwhelming. After an 80 mile drive in fairly busy Saturday traffic, we arrived and paid a mandatory $10 to park. Sure, why not, at least we're finally here. We made our way across the sweltering asphalt parking lot toward the festival entrance and paid another $15 each for tickets under a sign welcoming us to the "asparagus festival." The cluster of 20-30 bikers hanging out seemed indifferent to our arrival, and so we made our way through the "security check" station. Once inside the gates we were greeted by still more asphalt and came to realize the entire thing was just one large parking lot. This is not a great place to have a daytime event in August, as it was easily over 100 degrees outside when we arrived at 2:30. Already feeling the heat, we decided to make our way around in search of a long awaited lunch. But after checking a couple vendors, we couldn't find anything garlic related. One after another, we passed different booths and each time came up empty. Kettle-corn stand? Check. New-age crystal stand? Check. Overtly-threatening-pro-gun stand? Check. But no garlic anywhere. Finally, as if in answer to our search, we noticed the giant line snaking toward a gymnasium-like building at the edge of the parking lot and overheard someone saying that this was "garlic alley." Well about time! We were so relieved to hear there actually would be some garlic that we made our way straight to the end of the line and queued up in the blazing 100 degree heat.About 65 minutes later we were able to order our cup of garlic pesto noodles and garlic fries. There was one additional item available, a garlic mushroom bread bowl. But that was it. Garlic noodles, garlic fries, or a bread bowl. I get that they were trying to feed a lot of people, but it just felt like high school lunch all over again and the wait in the intense heat did not improve the situation.If I could offer some humble suggestions for improving the festival, it would be maybe hold it in the fall or at least in the evening when temperatures are cooler. People are going to get heatstroke or heat exhaustion and while I did see two or three police officers I didn't see an ambulance around anywhere. Second, people are looking for more pageantry, more garlic related events and decoration. Celebrate it! I didn't see a single clove of garlic the entire four hours I was there. How is that possible? No garlic bread? No garlic pizza? No garlic shrimp? No garlic wings? These are slam dunks people! Not even a little jar of fresh minced garlic to buy and take home? I felt so sad for the little guy or gal walking around in the garlic mascot costume in the heat. I just want to say I know everyone must have really tried their best to pull this festival off and your efforts are appreciated, but to attract people I think there's a lot of work to be done and there needs to be more independent, grass roots garlic specific food vendors rather than just a centralized 3 item line. People really value the variety, craft, and the narrative behind the food they're consuming and to draw in larger crowds that part needs focus.UPDATE: Just found this news story from back in May, wish I'd watched this first: https://youtu.be/X5B4hSvPylo

This was unfortunately the worst food festival I've ever been to and I was really looking forward to it because NorCal grows most of the country's garlic. Expectation: As prompted from their website and media coverage...we were expecting lots of garlic vendors, garlic merchandise, garlic themed everything, garlic decor, bulk garlic for sale, garlic treats to bring home (like garlic olive oil, garlic butter, garlic chips, etc). On a nice rustic farmland looking area, even better if garlic farm with rustic cute looking booths. But mainly, a plethora of garlic food. Reality: Instead we got a barebones experience on cement/asphalt. The food vendors were vendors you'd find at any county fair, they didn't have garlic themed food. The only vendors with garlic food was inside this big warehouse which was a clustercluck shite show. All they had was garlic pesto pasta, garlic fries, garlic bread bowl that honestly anyone could've made at home. The garlic ice cream also did not taste a hint of garlic. Yet they have the audacity to overcharge on all of the food. I know fair food is usually more expensive but damn, I live in SF and even I think the prices here is a crime. $4 for ice cream cone?? Oh, and it doesn't end there. There's a long line to get into the Garlic alley (where all the garlic food is). Once you order food, you have to get in another waiting area to pick up food! We literally waited an hour to get garlic food and it wasn't even that good. Tasted like overpriced cafeteria food. And the entertainment was not great either, I've never ever heard such offkey singing at a public stage before (except for karaoke bars). This festival was such a scam. For the cost of parking, festival tickets and food all came out to $80 for two people! We could've gotten a nicer meal in SF. Tldr; This is the Fyre fest version of a food festival. Wtf. Save your money and do not come here.

No garlic festival this year. This is not a shocker and I've seen this coming for many many years now.I no longer live in Gilroy, but I grew up as a kid throughout all these garlic festivals and even taking part and being one of the sponsors and workers at these garlic festivals throughout the years.I have literally watched the garlic festival go from being a great and awesome event and serving decent size Porsche foods for decent prices to get people to like garlic and then buy merchandise to an event that has tiny portions for extremely expensive price in the hot sun I watch this festival, slowly, diminishing it, and nobody did anything about it. They continued on their rampaging path for profits and diminishing the experience.For example, they always had pesto pasta bowl of regular and very decent sizes for about three dollars. I watch them more and more make it into a tiny little bowl for about nine dollars each in amazement. I wondered why anybody was buying them. They were still selling them because people went all the way to the garlic festival had to go and buy something to eat people that were doing this just seem to not realize everybody's never to return.And here we are today they did not make enough money because people didn't return throughout the last few years and now there is no festival. It seems there is a garlic festival association, which is a side step and doce do dance into saying They're gonna try to still make it seem like there's a garlic festival and yeah, it's just a little get-togethers.It's very sad to see my history go this path because of so many vendors being greedy and not realizing how to do business on the long-term.It would've been far far better for the city of Gilroy to subsidize some of those food booths to keep the prices down really low to spread the word . Did they do it? NoSo here we are today where the city is getting no revenue from all these cars coming in no revenue from parking no revenue from taxes from the hotels nothing. It shows the how inept the government is in the city and the people that were running this event .I think I have said my peace now about this event .

I'm sorry but if anyone gave this "festival" more than 1 star, its all cap. This festival was trash juice! Compared to the Gilroy garlic festival, theres really no comparison. Maybe it will get better in the future since this was the first time Stockton hosting the Garlic festival. I'm a garlicholic and to be honest with you, this spot did not fulfill my addiction. When I left the festival I got in my car and drove to tue nearest grocery store to buy garlic. Lol jk It sounded funny tho. I honestly didn't see all the garlic foods except for garlic fries. I didn't see the ropes of garlic for sale, the elephant garlic for sale. It just seemed boring. Yea it was koo because there was pavement and we didn't have to walk on dirt and get all dusty. There was lots of stuff missing but like I said, it was Stocktons first time hosting so hopefully in the future they get better. They did have a room with like one artistic picture every 4 feet away from the next picture in a dark room and they did have a car show with some dope rides and also had some actual rides for the kids to get on but for me it still wasn't as exciting as the original Garlic festival.

Rave. Rave. Rave. We participated in the California Garlic Festival Pageant Program, and it was so good for my 8 year old daughter. All the participants were kind, generous, and helpful. The volunteers whom coordinated the pageant were always cheerfully professional, and available to answer questions quickly. My daughter has already asked if she could participate in next year's California Garlic Festival Princess Pageant.

Worst festival ever cuz it dodged the theme. Lowriders, pageants, and Hawaiian dancers don't make up for the lack of Garlic dishes. Garlic fries, mushrooms and pasta is a bad choice cuz they're very mainstream. Worst of all they were under seasoned and had too little garlic. Seriously cafeteria level!!

Amazing job on the 1st California Garlic Festival-Stockton! The Garlic Bacon Fries were right on point! Oh and they had the "Cali Garlic Alley," we tried the Garlic Mushroom Onion Bread Bowl it was AHMAZING! They even had Maple Brown Sugar Garlic Ice Cream.The Show and Shine Car Show displayed fabulous vintage rides, hot rods, muscle cars, and low-riders; with Global Warming taking Best In Show! Enjoyed Shopping at the local fruit stand market selling fruits and veggies.The kids loved the monster truck rides, petting zoo and carnival rides too!Looking forward to the next one!

My husband and I signed our 5 year old daughter up for the Princess Program pageant. She is naturally very shy and at first thought she wasn't going to do well on stage. I was worried I would have to be on stage with her. But the older pageant girls and fellow princesses were so very helpful and made our daughter feel welcome and confident while walking on stage. I saw at least 4 or 5 different young ladies guiding her throughout the whole program. I thought that was awesome! The pageant coordinator Shim and the rest of the staff were so friendly and welcoming! Our daughter had such a great time and says she can't wait to be in it next year. After the princess program we enjoyed a cooking demonstration from Dave Royce. Then got us some garlic maple brown sugar ice cream, which was amazing by the way! It would've been nice to have more garlic options since my family and I love anything garlic, but mainly we just wanted the ice cream lol. All in all it was an amazing and SAFE event. No worries of anyone shooting it down like they did in Gilroy ‍. This was a fun event for our little family to enjoy and we will DEFINITELY be back next year!

This is for the Garlic Festival at the San Joaquin Fairgrounds.Can't bring a thermos of water in the fairgrounds, but security said "there'll be a refilling station inside. Stay hydrated!" Nope. You can pay $3 for a plastic bottle of water (we carry thermoses because we don't use plastic bottles). Only place to fill the thermos: the restrooms. Yuck.Garlic pesto pasta horribly over-cooked, and not hot - not cold, just not hot. $14No shade on walkways, only on vendors. Don't waste your time or your money.