The smell of barbecue will be in the air on the east side of Saint John starting today and running through the entire weekend.
It’s the second annual Loyalist City Ribfest which takes place at Exhibition Park and is both a competition between what are known as ‘Ribbers’ and a place to grab some grub and listen to music. The Ribfest’s Peter Wilkins tells us that last year was a huge success.
“We were overwhelmed last year with the response, our best estimate is about 40,000 people came to Ribfest last year, so the Ribbers actually ran out of some items – they ran out of brisket early in the week, they ran out of sauce to sell.”
It’s expected that the event will see that number of people during the four day event. Crabby’s BBQ Shack, Camp 31, Texas Rangers BBQ and Billy Bones are the four teams that will compete for trophies and the ‘People’s Choice Award’. Along with the Ribbers other vendors will sell foods like butterfly fries, poutine and for the first time a bloomin’ onion.
“It’s a big onion that’s sliced open then dipped in batter and deep friend and apparently it’s heaven,” says Wilkins.
The Ribfest hours are going to be from 11am to 11pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and on Sunday from 11am to 6pm.
