Cleveland Garlic Festival Hits Shaker Square With Ice Cream, $6,000 for Local Chefs

Garlic fries, garlic beer, and Mitchell's Garlic Ice Cream are coming back to Shaker Square, as the Cleveland Garlic Festival marks its 17th year with two days of food, music, and cooking competitions on August 29 and 30. The event runs noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, drawing chefs, farmers, and vendors to the historic square for what's become one of the region's most pungent late-summer traditions.

According to Cleveland Scene, the festival benefits North Union Farmers Market, the nonprofit that supports local farms and healthy food access through certified producer-only markets. That connection is more than incidental: proceeds from ticket and vendor sales serve as the primary annual fundraising source for the organization, directly supporting SNAP matching, WIC, Produce Perks, and Senior voucher programs across Northeast Ohio, according to the Cleveland Garlic Festival.

Emma Visnic, quoted in the Cleveland Scene report, said the festival is as much about community as it is about food. That sentiment shows up in the festival's lineup, which mixes serious culinary competition with kid-friendly entertainment and live music spread across the square's central green.

Grill-Offs, Pitch Competitions, and a National Reputation for Stink

Local chefs will square off in the festival's Garlic Grill-Off, one of several cooking demonstrations and competitions scheduled across the weekend, per the same Cleveland Scene account. Vendors on-site will include Cousins Maine Lobster, Piccolo Authentic Italian, Frankie Lynn Hotdog, Rooster Kitchen, and La Campagna, alongside garlic-forward staples like garlic fries, garlic shrimp, and garlic ice cream.

Beyond prepared foods, the festival features local garlic growers selling varieties for both cooking and planting, plus handmade pasta, fermented foods, artisan cheeses, fresh produce, baked goods, craft beverages, wine, donuts, and lemonade. That range of offerings has earned the event a national reputation for its quirkier side: Food & Wine Magazine once dubbed it “America's Stinkiest Festival,” a nod to its garlic beer, garlic fries, and Mitchell's Garlic Ice Cream, according to the Cleveland Garlic Festival.

Also returning is the Les Dames d'Escoffier Cleveland Chapter pitch competition, now in its second year, which supports women entrepreneurs in food, beverage, hospitality, and agriculture. The 2026 competition awards $6,000 in total grant funding, with $3,000 going to first place, $2,000 to second, and $1,000 to third, according to Les Dames d'Escoffier International Cleveland Chapter.

A Fundraising Engine Behind the Fun

The festival's scale places it among the country's bigger garlic celebrations. The Toronto Garlic Festival's national directory estimates that the Cleveland event draws roughly 20,000 attendees annually, putting it on par with major national gatherings like the Connecticut Garlic & Harvest Festival, per the Toronto Garlic Festival.

That turnout matters because North Union Farmers Market leans on the festival as its cornerstone annual fundraiser. The nonprofit was founded in 1995 by biologist and chef Donita Anderson, who led it for 30 years before retiring in 2025, according to North Union Farmers Market. In 2024 alone, the organization incubated more than 350 small businesses — including 100 local farmers and 130 food purveyors — while supporting over 10,000 acres of Ohio farmland and distributing more than $120,000 in food assistance benefits, as reported by Hoodline when the nonprofit launched a downtown market pilot earlier this month.

Setting Down Roots in a Historic Square

The garlic itself has local origins, too. Northeast Ohio's mineral-rich soil allows regional farmers to cultivate more than 300 varietals of garlic, feeding the agricultural supply on display each year at the festival, according to Why Cleveland.

The venue itself carries its own history. Completed in 1929 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, Shaker Square is recognized as the second-oldest planned shopping center in the United States, per Cleveland Historical. The 168,000-square-foot district was purchased in 2022 by local nonprofit groups Burten, Bell, Carr Development and Cleveland Neighborhood Progress specifically to keep it under local ownership, a move that came amid broader community pushback over proposed commercial redevelopment at the square, as Hoodline detailed in its report on opposition to a car wash plan there.

Festival organizers note that attendees can reach Shaker Square via Greater Cleveland RTA's Blue and Green light rail lines, which run directly from downtown Cleveland to the square's central green. Discount presale tickets are available through the festival website, with admission also sold at the gate.