Since 2013, Pensacola EggFest has given people a reason to look forward to the Second Sunday in November.
At noon on Nov. 10, 50 teams from far and wide, will gather around an ever so versatile Big Green Egg − smoking, grilling and serving up their best recipes, all in the name of good food for a good cause.
But this year, these Big Green Eggs will be fired up at a new location.
“After 11 incredible years at the (Blue Wahoo’s) stadium, we will be moving our event to the Hadji Shrine Temple on Nine Mile Road,” said Pensacola EggFest Founder and Organizer Doug Jolly. “That originally started with us looking for a new venue for our VIP event the Friday night before, and turned into us moving our entire event there, which is a huge change for us.”
This move will provide room for the event to grow even further.
“We were just maxed out on teams,” said Buck Hall, another founder and organizer. “The Blue Wahoos have been amazing to us these past 11 years and played a big role in growing the event to where it is today.”
As a 100% volunteer-led event, this event raises money for local charities and nonprofit organizations such as the Manna Food Pantry.
“And the biggest give in that is our cook teams,” Jolly said. “We just create the opportunity for them to do this. We need our cook teams, we love our cook teams, because without them, we don’t have an event. If they don’t show up and show out, we don’t have an event.”
The teams’ showmanship is expressed through the execution of their food. One year, a team entered an apple pie a la mode. According to Hall, they peeled the apples and made the crust and even the ice cream all onsite.
“It’s truly unlimited, what you can do,” Jolly said. “We get everything, from desserts, to smoked mullet dip. You can use the Big Green Egg in so many different ways, whether you’re smoking indirect, cooking hot over a direct fire, or using it as a convection oven.”
At Pensacola EggFest, Hall and Jolly explained that variety is truly the spice of life. You’ll be hard pressed to find a team with an identical dish or recipe.
“They’re not there sampling 50 different types of BBQ,” Hall said. “It’s not a pork, chicken, and ribs competition. They’re gonna have 50 completely different bites of food to choose from.”
Not only that, but the teams start competing long before the event.
“People’s first time attending EggFest, a lot of times, they are surprised by the variety and complexity of what they’re eating,” Jolly said. “The creativity never ceases to amaze us. Some of our teams that are perennial top finishers work throughout the year refining their dishes for EggFest, and we can’t wait to see what they come up with this year.”
But 500 bites of food is a tall order − especially when it’s a cooking competition.
“Yes, we tell each team to create 500 bites, and that’s where people have different interpretations,” Hall said. “It truly is a bite of food. If you think about it, that’s 50 teams. You have 50 bites of food. That’s just an ounce a piece − 4 pounds of food, right? So you can’t taste it all.”
But if you want to bring home a Big Green Egg of your own, they will be for sale at the event.
“Most of them pre-sell before the event ever happens,” Jolly said. “Everything that the teams are cooking on are what they call a ‘demo egg,’ and it’s the one time that you could get a discounted egg from Big Green Egg. We bring in brand new ‘Eggs,’ fire them up for a few hours for our event, and people pick them up at drastic discounts.”
What keeps people coming back, year after year? More likely than not, your first time won’t be your last.
“We do a study with UWF every year,” Hall said. “Ninety percent of our attendees come to EggFest because they feel a sense of community. They know that every penny that we make goes to local charities. I think that matters to them. That’s because 90% of them are there, knowing that’s the purpose.”
For the Judges’ Award, judges are divided into five teams and each team picks their top two bites, creating the top 10 finalists. The first round of judging happens at the competitors’ sites while they’re serving bites to the public onsite.
Once the top 10 finalists are locked in, they will then prepare a dish to present to the judges.
“That’s their opportunity to really up it and present their dish to all of the judges at once, including the ones who didn’t get to try it in the first round of judging,” Jolly said. “They get an opportunity to talk about their dish, what inspired them, their story.”
And when it’s all said and done, the judges will award first second and third place.
But as always, the people will also have a say in picking a winner, too. Attendees get a couple of tickets per person to choose their favorite bit of the day and first, second and third place will be chosen for the People’s Choice.
Where do the proceeds go?
By the end of Pensacola EggFest 2023, $780,000 had been raised and given to local charities.
“That’s not our money,” Hall said. “That’s the money from the people that buy the auction items, that buy tickets, that spend the money to cook, that’s the community coming out.”
What started as Hall and Jolly coming to Pensacola KIA Autosport with an idea and a dream, quickly expanded into an impressive cohort of businesses and sponsors coming out in support of EggFest, with Pen Air Federal Credit Union, The Butcher Shoppe, and Old Hickory Whiskey Bar among the many who’ve joined the ranks.
“We have an incredible group of sponsors, blessed with the people that we’ve partnered with,” Jolly said. “Many of them have been with us since the very beginning. That just speaks to the generosity of this community each year.”
“We want to hit that million dollar mark,” Jolly said. “We may hit it in 2025, but my message to the people of Pensacola is, ‘let’s go, let’s hit it in 2024. Let’s dig into our pockets and bless the socks off of these local non profit organizations that do incredible work in our community.'”
General Admission Tickets are now on sale for $55, and VIP tickets are $95. Children under 10 can enter free. For more information, visit www.pensacolaeggfest.com…Read more by Kalyn Wolfe