Feastival in Downtown Plano

Saturday’s Feastival in downtown Plano brought a small-town street fair feeling to the big city (hey, Plano really IS big with 270,000+ residents at last count). Presented by the Historic Downtown Plano Association along with several corporate sponsors, the festival focused on downtown’s abundance of good eats. If you weren’t lucky enough to be at the festivities, here’s what you missed:

The historic brick-paved streets crawling with people, and downtown parking lots bursting at the seams.

Kiddos and dogs debuting their Halloween costumes.

The smell of pizza sizzling in Urban Crust’s portable pizza oven truck thingy, battling the drool-inducing smell of smoky barbecue wafting out of Lockhart. I’ll have both, please.

And then more food! Crawfish pistolettes from Cajun Tailgators, lasagna from Brix Bar & Grill, cookies from Angela’s at the Crosswalk, buffalo and elk burgers from Ye Olde Butcher shop, loopy cake balls (with vodka!) from Amazeballs, and traditional fair offerings like roasted corn and warm peanuts.

Booths selling shaved ice, lemonade, iced coffee and cold beer to cool everyone off on the surprisingly warm day.

Live music streaming from a big stage set up smack in the middle of 15th Street. Big name acts like Brave Combo and Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights entertained the crowd.

Equally good live music on the corner of 15th and K from a busker calling himself The Jerry Denny. (Hey dude, we liked your version of “Wagon Wheel” just as much as the music coming from the other end of 15th.)

Kids bouncing, sliding, running, laughing, playing and creating art in the free kids zone.

Local vendors selling cool stuff like colorful scarves and dresses, vintage oil cans with carved jack-o’-lantern faces, garden sculptures, and Christmas decor. Customers also wandered in and out of the brick and mortar stores, whose doors were open to the nice breeze.

Yep, downtown Plano’s Feastival was alright, alright, alright.