Vaughan Pizzafest to be bigger, better than last year: organizers

YorkRegion.com
June 19, 2017
Adam Martin-Robbins

Start saving up your dough, Vaughan Pizzafest is back and it’s going to be even bigger than last year, organizers say.

“We’re going to have more pizza and a really big entertainment lineup,” Remo Palladini, event founder and chair, said. “We’ve got Stevie B and Joee on Friday night ... Then on Saturday night we’ve got Men Without Hats and then Sunday we have David Usher from the band Moist.”  

This year’s instalment, featuring 18 to 20 pizzerias, gets cooking Friday, July 14 and runs through to Sunday, July 16 at the Woodbridge Fairgrounds, 100 Porter Ave.

Among the pizzerias serving up steaming hot slices and personal-sizes pizzas are Nonna’s Oven from Richmond Hill, Ricci’s Pizzeria & Sandwich Shop and Pie Wood Fired Pizza Joint from Woodbridge plus Queen Margherita Pizza and Via Mercanti.

You can wash it down with some cold beer from Moosehead, Hop City and locally brewed Lake Wilcox Brewing Co. There’ll also be hard ciders, hard sodas and other offerings for non-beer drinkers.

The event also offers a slew of family friendly entertainment including a midway with a Ferris wheel, soccer, badminton, and an appearance by world champion pizza tosser Justin Wadstein.

Palladini expects huge crowds to descend on the fairgrounds.

About 16,000 pizza lovers devoured nearly 60,000 slices of pizza last year, he said. So, they’ve made adjustments to try to better manage the long lineups that plagued the inaugural event.

“We’re copying ideas from other events, what’s good from those events, and taking what we had problems with last year and improving on that,” Palladini said.

Admission costs $10 per person then you can purchase food and drink tickets for $1 each, with pizza slices costing $2 (or two tickets) to $5 (five tickets) and personal pies costing $6 to $12.

Pizzafest is also offering “a Canada 150 experience.”

For $150 you get an appetizer, pizza and dessert with wine pairings prepared by a celebrity chef.

All proceeds from that experience go to the Mackenzie Health Foundation to support the Vaughan hospital.

To find out more visit, http://vaughanpizzafest.com.