Clay County Brings Food Festival For Those Still Wanting To Experience The Fair

The two day event will continue tomorrow from eleven to seven.

BARNESVILLE Minn.- While the fair might look slightly different this year, it hasn’t stopped people from getting their hands on traditional fair food.

Even if it means driving more than 400 miles.

“He’s driving up to Barnesville from Omaha, to have foot longs this afternoon. He said he needed his annual fix of foot longs, and I can’t wait to meet him,” Hansen said.

Doug Hansen owns Hansen’s Amusement Food in Fergus Falls.

He has been coming to the Clay County Fair for years.

Hansen calls year 45 the shortest season yet.

“I’ve always felt the food concession business is not so different from being in agriculture, being a farmer. I grew up on a farm right here near Barnesville in the Red River Valley and occasionally you would have a crop failure, and this year is sort of our crop failure,” Hansen adds.

Some of the main food concessionaires at the fair then came forward with an idea.

“Wanted to see if we wanted to provide a food festival and open it up to all of our food vendors that normally are here at the fair,” the Secretary Treasurer of the  Clay County Fair Board James Kruice said.

The festival has been taking safety precautions by setting up picnic tables at a safe distance from each other, having hand sanitizer in all the stands and cleaning tables after every use.

And while there wasn’t a lot to see or do, the smell and taste of the fair food remained.

“It’s a short cry from being the county fair with 4H and all the activities and the hubbub of that, but part of the highlight, we’re one facet of the county fair is good old fair food,” Hansen said.