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Spoonbread Is a Test of How We Support Berea 🍄

Written by

Chad Hembree

I have been involved with the Spoonbread Festival since it first started. For fifteen years, I was the Emcee on the festival stage, so I have seen this weekend from a pretty good seat.

I have also seen what happens when you are running a local business during Spoonbread weekend.

When I took over the Spotlight Playhouse at 214 Richmond Road, our weekends, especially in the fall, became some of our busiest times of the year. We tried several years to participate in Spoonbread while also keeping the theater running.

The simple truth was that splitting our resources did not benefit us. We could not be in two places at once.

That experience has changed how I look at one particular question I sometimes hear around town: Why isn’t this business participating in Spoonbread?

Before we decide that a business is not supporting the festival, we ought to stop and think about what is actually happening.

The 30th Annual Spoonbread Festival is set for September 18 through 20, 2026, on West Jefferson Street in Berea. The Berea Chamber of Commerce produces the festival. The 2026 Chamber listing calls for craft and commercial vendors, food vendors, live entertainment, hot-air balloons, a car show, a 5K and carnival rides, along with other activities. Berea Tourism carries the same dates and identifies the Chamber as the host.

The festival is free to attend, while individual activities can have their own costs or registration.

The festival and the food behind it 🍄

And yes, this is a big weekend for Berea.

Spoonbread is not just a name somebody picked because it sounded good. It is a food with deep roots in Kentucky and Appalachian cooking, and it became closely associated with Berea through Boone Tavern and the town’s long history of welcoming visitors. The festival began in 1997 and grew from that local food tradition into one of Berea’s signature fall gatherings.

That history matters.

Where festival visitors actually spend their money 🗺

So does the geography.

When visitors come into Berea for Spoonbread, they do not stay on West Jefferson Street all weekend. People move through College Square. They walk the Chestnut Street and Old Town district. They travel Richmond Road. They stay in the hotels near the interstate interchange. They stop at businesses that are nowhere near the festival grounds.

That is part of the economic mechanism underneath a community festival.

Some businesses can put up a booth and sell directly to festival visitors. That is a good thing.

Other businesses are better served by staying at their own locations and handling the customers who come through town. That can be a good thing, too.

Why some Berea businesses are not at the festival 🎪

I am sure there are other businesses in town that feel the same way we did at Spotlight. They actually benefit from the festival being here, but they cannot directly participate in the festival and make it profitable for their business.

As a town, we should support those businesses because they are not ignoring Spoonbread. We certainly were not. They simply cannot be physically present at the festival and operate their businesses the way they need to.

So when you hear somebody say, “So-and-so was not at the festival,” or “So-and-so did not participate,” take a moment before you go down that road.

You may not know what that business is doing to support Berea.

Why Chamber membership matters 🏛

There is another part of this conversation that deserves more attention.

The Berea Chamber of Commerce produces Spoonbread, and the Chamber is also working on the business community the other 362 days of the year. Its current calendar includes regular luncheons and Coffee & Conversation meetings, and its membership program provides networking, business referrals, marketing support, community activities and opportunities for members to volunteer and participate.

That is why I think businesses should look seriously at Chamber membership.

All those sponsorship and advertising opportunities around Spoonbread are useful. They put businesses in front of people, and they help make the festival possible. There is nothing wrong with advertising. In fact, local businesses need good advertising.

But membership is a different kind of investment.

A festival advertisement works for a particular event. Chamber membership puts a business into an organization that is working on relationships, referrals, networking and community issues throughout the year. One does not have to be better than the other. They serve different purposes.

If you truly want to support the festival and you believe Spoonbread does something good for your business, then I would encourage you to belong to the Berea Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber lists membership at $30 a month or $300 annually. That is a year-round investment in the business community that produces Spoonbread and continues working after the tents come down.

How to support Spoonbread in your own way ✅

I am not saying every business needs to be at West Jefferson Street that weekend.

I am saying we should pay attention to how the whole town benefits.

If you own a business in Berea or the surrounding Madison County area and Spoonbread brings customers your way, support the festival in the way that makes sense for your business. Maybe that means a booth. Maybe it means sponsorship. Maybe it means advertising. Maybe it means keeping your doors open and serving the people who came to town.

And if you want to make a longer-term investment, join the Chamber.

The 30th Annual Spoonbread Festival is worth celebrating because it has lasted three decades. But the more important question is what we do with that tradition now.

We should not measure community support only by who is standing under a festival tent.

Look at the whole map. Look at the whole year. Look at the businesses, organizations and people who keep Berea moving when there is no festival banner hanging over West Jefferson Street.

That is how a small town stays strong.

And that is the test Spoonbread gives us every September: not whether everybody can show up in the same place, but whether we are willing to keep showing up for Berea.

Upcoming Community and Theater Events 🎭

Tickets and info for all shows: thespotlightplayhouse.com

Sources 📚

About the Author ✍

Chad Hembree serves as the Executive Director of Spotlight Acting School, The Spotlight Playhouse, and Spotlight Performing Arts. A resident of Berea, Kentucky, and a former member of the Berea Council, he has spent decades working in community theater, arts education, and local journalism. Since 1995, he has operated BereaOnline.com, focusing on local news, civic issues, and stories that highlight community collaboration and grassroots efforts across Madison County.

This article originally appeared on BereaOnline.com.

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