This Saturday, June 16, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Jones Valley Teaching Farm — formerly Jones Valley Urban Farm — will host Freshworks Festival at their Gardens of Park Place location on 25th Street North.
The festival will feature a full day of food, live music, chef demonstrations and, of course, beer to celebrate Birmingham’s bounty of fresh, local food.
The Dexateens are among the acts playing the Freshworks Festival hosted by Jones Valley Teaching Farm June 16. There wll also be food and beer.
For any lover of all things local, be it bands, beer or beef, Freshworks promises to be a choice event.
No matter what actually draws you to Freshworks, you can rest assured that at least something you can taste, hear or see throughout the day probably came from less than a day’s drive away.
Special guests John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and author of The Truck Food Cookbook , and Angie Mosier, photographer for the cookbook , will be signing copies during the festival.
Chefs Donald Link from Cochon and Ryan Pruitt from Herbsaint, both New Orleans restaurants, will hold chef demos.
Will Harris from White Oaks Pastures in Bluffton, Ga., Deborah Stone from Stone Hollow Farmstead in Birmingham and other local farmers will be at the festival selling their produce and discussing local produce.
Plenty of beer and food will be provided by local Birmingham businesses, including Good People Brewing Company, Jim ‘n Nick’s Bar-B-Q, Cantina, Dreamcakes Bakery, and Steel City Pops (which was featured in a recent Weld Local article). There will also be a wide variety of food trucks to choose from, including not only local trucks like Shindigs, Spoonfed Grill and the newly-opened Fresh Off the Bun, but several food trucks from nearby cities, like Atlanta’s Honeysuckle, which makes “Southern-inspired gelato” and Nashville’s Biscuit Love, which, as its name implies, makes biscuits and other Southern staples from scratch.
Plenty other restaurants will be present as well, with at least three barbecues expected to appear. No matter what your personal tastes, you’ll find something to chow down on at Freshworks.
Musical entertainment will be provided by The Dexateens, Shelly Colvin, Young Hines, Jonny Corndawg, Robert Ellis and Brendan Benson of The Raconteurs throughout the day.
Even with all this food and entertainment, the size of the dent in your wallet is up to you. The festival itself is totally free, leaving you to spend your money on stuff like gelato, books and clothing from Molly Green of Homewood. Good thing too. With so many things worth dropping some coin on packed into one place, it’s a good thing there’s no price for admission.
