ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Foodlink’s Festival of Food is returning after two years Monday.

The annual tasting event was canceled the last two years due to the pandemic, but Finger Lakes residents will be excited to have it back!

The festival attracts people and businesses from across the Finger Lakes region to enjoy a night of good food, drinks and live music. 

“We know the public enjoys it. We know they love to get out and taste the best that Rochester has to offer, so it’s a massive tasting event at the Rochester Public Market,” said Mark Dwyer, the Director of Marketing and Communications with Foodlink. “We invite local restaurants, breweries, wineries, bakeries, farms, all of the big names in Rochester kind of gathering at one place for one night.”

Dwyer said the festival not only gives the community the chance to support small businesses across our area, but it also allows them to support Foodlink’s continued efforts in fighting food insecurity.

“This is one of our major fundraisers throughout the year, so we want to make sure that we can provide all of the services that we can provide and that requires some public support throughout the year,” Dwyer said.

“This fundraiser was always critically important for us every fall, to make sure that these dollars go to support not only our food banking initiatives but all the different programs that we operate, like the Curbside Market, the Community Farm, the cafe, all of these different programs that we do to really target the root causes of hunger beyond what we do as a food bank.”

Dwyer said even though they haven’t had the festival the last two years because of the pandemic, guests can expect this year’s event to look similar to years past.

“There’s a band, there’s your VIP tickets available, of course just general admission as well, but it’s not too far off from what we’ve done in past years where people show up, they purchase a ticket and those tickets go to support our mission,” Dwyer said. 

The Festival of Food is on September 12 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Rochester Public Market. 

You can get your tickets to the event by clicking here.