California Avocado Festival

Fun for the whole family! Lots to see, vendors galore.
The wonder smells of all the different foods, you have to try the avocado ice cream, its a little different, it doesn’t taste like avocados at all. It’s pleasant.
Carpenteria is a beautiful town, and you get to enjoy people watching, eat great street good, see arts and crafts… Great experience

This was our first and last time attending this festival.
It is called the avocado festival however it was more commercialized than focusing on the wonderful avocado! We did try the avocado ice cream — I did not care for it — had a powdery taste but the wife enjoyed it. She said it had a nice creamy texture and was good… just not good enough to want to go back. This festival seems very popular, as we were leaving there were a lot of people headed to the fair. It was not to crowded when we arrived at 10:00am but when we were leaving a couple hours later it was packed!

We like to start off at Island Brew Company for really good beer before heading out into the masses and having crap offered at the festival itself.
Live music, avocados and the beach. Love it. Basically the same vendors year after year and it’s a bit small but I love it. Stay hydrated and yes you will get ticketed if you park illegally.

After wanting to attend this annual event for many years, 2014 was finally the year, but, unfortunately it was a disappointment. The event is several blocks long and ONLY ONE –yes ONE avocado merchant – and 99% of what they are selling are the ubiquitous HAAS avocado– and priced higher than the local market! Also, after browsing all the usual «festival» types of booths, only ONE was selling novelty avocado jewelry. Majority of the food was sans avocado. Calling this event an «avocado» festival is a joke. A better name would something along the lines of «Carpentaria Fall Festival». If you’re not a local, save the gas money and go to your local farmers market for a better avocado experience.

This was my first time attending. I wasn’t disappointed, though I think keeping my expectations in check helped.
It’s a fairly small sized festival, which I prefer. But it can be a problem during peak hours because who likes it when small areas get super crowded? However, despite the hordes of people, the lines moved relatively quick.
Clean, well-​organized, easy to navigate. There are several bands playing live music throughout the day to make it feel more festive.
The important part — FOOD!
– Avocados: wide selection, great deals! Bought 3 for 75 cents each.
– Guacamole: chunky and delicious.
– Chocolate avocado truffles: pricey ($ 3.75 for 2), but so good!
– Fish tacos: hit the spot. Again, pricey, but thats festival food for ya.
– Avocado Honey Ale: I’m not a beer person, so I didn’t care too much for it, but I don’t know where else you’d find it, so its worth tasting.
– Avocado brownies: only tried a sample of one, but I liked it.
– Avocado ice cream: yum! Creamy, sweet, with a subtle hint of avocado taste.
– Tri-​tip sandwiches with avocado: took a bite of my bf’s. It seemed good, and filling.
– Avocado tea cake: bought a loaf, and enjoyed it. Great for breakfast!
Fun to attend with friends and most of all, for avocado aficionados who love seeking out novelty food adventures. I hope to come again!

I attended the Avocado Festival three years ago and it wasn’t nearly as big as it was this year. There was a variety of avocado items, for example, avocado ice cream, avocado body soap, avocado honey ale, guacamole, avocado smoothie, and avocado brownies. Unfortunately the avocado honey ale was not as good as it was 3 years ago maybe because it was a different vendor. I was fortunate enough to try the avocado ice cream this year (they sold out back in 2010), it was not that good. It tasted like sweet guacamole with hint of garlic… yeah, I know weird. I LOVE garlic, but this was just not good. What I did enjoy was the tri tip! It was all I could ever ask for… a lot of meat and a dash of guac in a sandwich roll. My boyfriend loved it so much he had to get another and while waiting in line, he came across a sweet deal, a whole trip tip and a bag of rolls for 20 bucks! The only downer was that there were no knives available for us to make sandwiches on the spot.
All in all, I’d drive up again next year.

Love the really awesome art up at Island Brew Co.
Overall, the place is packed, lots of families, food, music and booze. Everyone is friendly and picking up after themselves. Great food selection, lots of things are cash only but ATMs are placed strategically around Avofest! Having a blast!

This was my first visit to the avocado festival and I was a little disappointed at the small amount of avocado based food and merchandise. I had expected to try all sorts of avocado dishes. There really weren’t that many to choice from. We had Avocado Ice Cream, Avocado Cupcakes (at Crushcakes), and Guac. It was all tasty, but I guess we just expected more. All in all, it was a fun day outside in Carpinteria. I will most likely not return though.

This is my favorite festival I’ve found so far in California. I always get a scoop of Avocado ice cream. It’s the only place I’ve found it. There are lots of other great, more traditional foods with avo’s as an ingrediant. That includes BLT’s, Guacamole dip, veggie tacos, etc. We saw an exceptional local band on Friday night called the Rainbow Girls. Excellent original songs, musicianship and stage presence from this girl band. Something else nice (and different) about the Avo Fest is that it’s free. Hard to find a festival this nice that isn’t sellng tickets.

This event is a nice small festival. It is free, which is always a plus, but they of course get you with the prices for food. We had chips and guacamole for $ 5, which was definitely worth it. But the tri-​tip sandwich with guacamole for $ 9 was definitely NOT worth it! It smelled amazing, as they were grilling the meat right next to the stand, but it just didn’t taste good. I didn’t finish the half I shared with my boyfriend. A couple years ago I had some sort of carne asada plate, and that was better. But I wish they had more avocado-​related events. The festival is kind of just some avocado-​food stands, with all of the same stands from Santa Barbara artwalk that I could see every Sunday. Oh well, it’s something fun to do to mix up an October weekend.

kinda dissapointing. Expected more avocado inspired foods and gifts. Mostly standard style market goodies, not avocado inspired at all.
Nothing ultra special, but a very fun day. Road ends at beach which makes for a fun walk and day of events.
FREE-​entrance. Can’t beat it!
$ 6 avocado with tortilla chips. Lots of bands playing down the street throughout the entire weekend.

Seems like the event grows every year from the sound of the other reviews. I’ve gone to my share of festivals and the California Avocado Festival is very humble in comparison. It’s a nice day trip and a great event for the entire family to enjoy. However, I was expecting more «avocado-​ish» dishes. The festival did have avocado ice cream which was «no bueno». Granted, I did eat the entire ice cream, but one time is enough for me.
I would definitely hit this festival up again to see how it develops.

In my mind, this was suppose to be a huge carnival of avocado goodness. Like men dressed in avocado suits and helium avocado balloons sort of affair. My expectations were not met. Although I did partake in the worlds largest bowl of guacamole and the avocado ice cream made by Cold Stones. the whole festival was a bit lackluster. The CA Garlic and Asparagus festival kind of puts this thing to shame. Too many commercial vendors and artsy/​craftsy booths. However, going to the festival did make a great conversation starter at the wedding my friend and I went to later on in the evening.

Visited the California Avocado Festival on Sunday with a few friends. Most of us had a tri-​tip guacamole sandwich, which had numerous layers of tri-​tip, was very filling. a bit dry, but it had yummy guac! These I didn’t get to try but looked delicious: guac nachos served with a HEFTY scoop of chunky guac. A plate of spinning spuds or yams.
Sipped some avocado honey ale and was deceived by the suggestion that it was a sort of avocado-​flavored beer. It contained no avocados-​but the honey was from combs found in avocado farms. o_​o
One of the best things to taste and buy: the Avocado Tea Cake, very moist and made with a perfect balance of tea and avocado.
Overall, I had a fun time in this little food festival in small town Carp!

This was another great event this year! They had even more bands, more guacamole-​inspired foods, and more vendors than last year. The only item we really missed was the deep-​fried avocados. :(But, they added Spencer MacKenzie’s fish tacos and tri-​tip guacamole sandwiches this year!
The event was definitely more organized this year. They had maps, better signage, more portable restrooms and a lot of roaming maintenance folks so there was never garbage lying around.
Island Brewery had more Avocado Honey Ale on tap this year too and their own portable restrooms. Holy Moly Guacamole was better than ever. We’ll definitely check it out again next year :)

Just attended the fest last night. Friday is usually thought of as local’s night and is a little bit more low key. Still it is a very small fest and you are only allowed to drink beer in a small restricted area. The highschool guacamole on chips was great as was the Lion’s Club Tri Tip and Guac sandwiches. So at least I got my guacamole fix. However… the focus of my visit was the mythical avocado icecream. I had heard about this strange «delight» for years and had always wondered what it tasted like. Low and behold a stand from ColdStones was selling this item. I eagerly purchased some for $ 5. TO my Surprise it was not green, perhaps it was only yellow tinged. It tasted like margerine mixed with low quality flavorless icecream. WAS THERE EVEN AVOCADO IN IT??? I threw it away immediately. My husband claims it tasted like rotton movie popcorn butter.
Other than the icecream disaster, one stand was selling actual avocados which were reasonably priced, $ 2 each or less if you buy more than one. They looked gorgeous and there was a Lamb Hass variety which I have never tried but looked like it was something special.
There were lots of kids at the fest to include teenagers and some touristy older folks so I am sure you will fit in. But don’t expect to spend more than 2 hours there and I wouldn’t recommend it if you live far away from Carpinteria.

I grew up in Carp and I’m still not sick of avocados! The festival is very fun — lots of music, beer, food, crafts. There are also activities for children, puppet shows and storytelling. The festival is not big (nor is Carpinteria), so I wouldn’t plan to be busy for the whole 2.5 days of the festival. Nearby, however, there are lots of other things to check out in addition to the festival: Cork Tree Cellars, Robitailles, Island Brewing Comany, the Spot, Rincon Designs, etc.

I am cringing as I write this, because if there is anything I love more than festivals, it’s avocados. So, when the news that they had been combined for a two-​day fun-​filled event, I was ecstatic. However, I am beyond sad to report that the California Avocado Festival in Carpinteria was a disappointing dream come true. Nightmare is a little too strong to describe this disaster, but just imagine what it feels like to go to a specific restaurant for a specific dish you’ve been craving, only to get there and hear that it’s been taken off the menu or 86ed. Your mind, spirit, stomach, and mouth are all experiencing conflicting emotions and there is absolutely no coping mechanism to help you. I know, it’s so shocking you don’t even want to believe it, but this is how I felt.
I love Carpinteria for its small, friendly beach community, but it’s far and on any other day would have been worth the drive. I had roped four friends into accompanying me with promises of avocado-​inspired fun. I felt absolutely horrible that I stripped them of an otherwise perfectly fine Sunday.
Where were all the avocados? When I hear a festival is centered around one theme, I expect a Bubba Gump Shrimp shmorgasboard type setup. There were only two avocado dishes out of an entire festival that represented anything experimental… the beer battered avocado (it was good, but not worth a trip to Carpinteria) and avocado ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery that was gone by the time we arrived. Now, this is not to say there wasn’t guacamole, there was, but only one stand offering it… yes, ONE. I mean, if there is any excuse to go buck wild with guacamole options, I would think it would be at an avocado festival. There were three different stages for live music (which would have been lovely if there had been other activities, or food, to keep our interest). Even the beer situation was underdone, and this is one area that almost every festival does right.
All in all, I wouldn’t recommend this event to anyone who doesn’t live within 0 – 20 minutes of Carp. I really am tearing up as I write this. Such a shell of a shame.

Spur of the moment mini road trip.
My husband read about the festival in some travel mag. I wasn’t too enthused at first but figured I could pick up some recipe ideas.
It’s a nice little food festival.
Not as many booths featuring avocados as I thought there might be though.
Had a BLT with guacamole sandwich which was just awlright. $ 7
Bought some Halloween wreaths in one of the artisan booths. $ 5 each.
Got a bottle of avocado oil. $ 10
Caught a very cool drum circle performance.
Had some New Age-​types in tie-​dyed clothes asking to touch my hair.
(I was in a good mood so why not.)
Browsed through the shops that lined the streets in the area.
Saw some cute dioramas made by local kiddies with dressed up avocados.
Looked at, but didn’t touch the prize winning big-​ass avocados (2 – 3 lbs).
Got some free avocado slicers, recipes & travel guides.
Forced myself to use one the many port-​potties. Got ticked off when I discovered I could have gone inside the Vons down the street.
Hubby always buys festival T-​shirts. $ 16 They gave us a free «go-​green» shopping bag which was cool.
It’s a lovely (but windy) community & we enjoyed the visit.
One complaint: On the website I looked up the directions on how to get there. The directions take you straight to a festival parking area. $ 10 which includes a trolley ride to the event. We figured to go visit the city’s beach afterwards. So we drive towards the shoreline. We find free parking next to the beach. We look behind us. WTH?!? The back entrance to the festival was right down the block! Okay, they suckered us-​Haha.