San Juan Bautista
– The Mission City will embrace the feathered fowl that roam its
streets this Saturday, with its very first Chicken Festival and
Parade.
San Juan Bautista – The Mission City will embrace the feathered fowl that roam its streets this Saturday, with its very first Chicken Festival and Parade.
The Chicken Festival and Parade, run by the San Juan Bautista Chamber of Commerce, is designed as an all-day family event. Organizers are hoping the festival will draw locals and tourist dollars to the town famous for its feral chickens and roosters. At first they had hoped it would raise more than $20,000 for the chamber of commerce.
Now, event organizer and chamber member Margot Tankersley said she will be happy with half of that.
“The chamber is hurting. The town is hurting. We need something to pull tourists to downtown,” said Tankersley, owner of Margot’s Ice Cream Parlor in San Juan.
The Chicken Festival and Parade will offer much of the typical festival fare: live music, arts and crafts and various vendors. But adding the chicken component to the festival will be a crowing contest, which can be entered by both person and poultry; a reigning chicken queen; and the presence of humans dressed in chicken costumes.
There also will be a chicken barbecue lunch. But the chicken served will come from the store, not the street, as Tankersley was quick to point out.
In many ways, the event is a fun way of winking at the presence of feral chickens downtown, Tankersley said.
“It’s just something different and fun. We have a little niche with our chickens,” she said. “We’re really hoping it takes off and that it becomes one of our annual events, just like the garlic festival is to Gilroy.”
