Memphis is getting its first tomato-themed street festival on August 22, when the Edgy Tomato Festival takes over the Edge District from 4 to 9 p.m. with free admission, a 30-plus vendor artist market, tomato-inspired food and drink, a flash tattoo station, and an all-red car show. The event is organized by Edible Memphis alongside Stacey Greenberg, Anderson Goin and other collaborators, and it centers on Marshall and Monroe avenues in the historic district just north of downtown.
The idea traces back to Edible Memphis, which inspired the festival, according to the Daily Memphian. Greenberg, who organized the inaugural event, told the paper she wants more people to bring forward ideas and help the festival grow, and she hopes the debut demonstrates enough potential to expand into future editions. She's also floated adding a parade to a future Edgy Tomato Festival, a sign organizers see this first year as a starting point rather than a finished product.
Edible Memphis has published a guide to tomato dishes available at local restaurants and at the festival itself, giving attendees a preview of what's on offer beyond the market stalls. Several Memphis food and drink spots are building menus specifically around the fruit for the occasion.
Tomato Dishes From Mempops to Flyway Brewing
Mempops will serve a roasted tomato and goat cheese popsicle, while Juiced What You Needed plans homemade pasta made with cherry tomatoes from Tubby Creek Farm alongside tomato lemonade. Tubby Creek Farm is a Certified Naturally Grown operation established in 2011 in Ashland, Mississippi, that already supplies the Memphis region through CSAs and farmers markets without synthetic chemical inputs.
Jem Dining is preparing cold tomato gazpacho, a panzanella salad and a smoked green-tomato cocktail. Flyway Brewing will pour a green tomato margarita and a michelada alongside a Home Place Pastures burger topped with tomato aioli. Hard Times Deli rounds out the lineup with a Sonoran hot dog served with tomato-cucumber salad.
Artists Turn Out for a Tomato-Themed Contest
The festival's artist market will feature more than 30 local creators selling tomato-themed jewelry, apparel, art, posters and handsewn items. Much of that creative energy runs through Ugly Art Co., the roughly 30-artist collective that Anderson Goin founded in 2021 and that operates out of 635 Madison Ave.
Ugly Art Co. is hosting a tomato-art contest that drew 85 entries, and Goin said the submissions ranged from classically trained artists to his own 7-year-old niece. The Daily Memphian reports the group's space will also host a broader gallery show on August 21 and 22 featuring more than 100 tomato-themed art submissions, opening the celebration to entrants beyond the formal contest.
An All-Red Car Show in Memphis's Old Auto Row
The Edge Motor Museum, at 645 Marshall Ave., will host an all-red car show as part of the festival lineup. The museum opened in November 2019 inside the historic 1925 Cherokee Motors building and typically displays 20 to 25 rotating American sports cars focused on post-war design, according to Wikipedia.
The setting is fitting: the Edge District originally developed in the 1920s as Memphis's Auto Row, a stretch of car dealerships and manufacturing plants along Marshall Avenue, as detailed by Common Ground. Many of the district's buildings historically paired front showrooms with assembly workshops behind them, a layout that still shapes the neighborhood's architecture today.
That industrial-turned-creative character has drawn other new businesses to the area in recent years. Memphis Made Brewing relocated to the Edge from Cooper-Young in 2024, expanding its production capacity and community event programming in the district.
Tomatoes Have Deep Roots in Tennessee
The festival taps into an agricultural identity that runs statewide. Tennessee named the tomato its official state fruit in 2003, and while the state ranks seventh nationally in tomato acreage, it ranks third in total production value at $54 million based on 2018 data, per Farm Flavor. Nationally, USDA figures cited by the same outlet show Americans eat an average of 31 pounds of tomatoes per person each year, making the fruit the fourth most popular fresh-market vegetable behind only potatoes, lettuce and onions.
Memphis organizers are also borrowing from a proven format. East Nashville's Tomato Art Fest, established in 2004 by gallery owners Meg and Bret MacFayden in Five Points, now draws tens of thousands of visitors annually after growing from a single art exhibit into a multi-day neighborhood celebration, according to the Tomato Art Fest. The Edgy Tomato Festival is billed as Memphis's first tomato festival, and it doubles as a fundraiser supporting Edible Memphis's local food reporting.
