Food Events

Welcome to your guide to food events and festivals in the Raleigh-Durham metro area. From food truck rodeos to farm-to-table dinners, find the best culinary happenings in the Triangle.

Last updated:

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Whiskey, Wine & Fire

An elegant evening in the pines featuring whiskey bars, elegant wines, cocktails, live music, tented food stations, food trucks, restaurants, and intimate firepits. Enjoy fire-kissed BBQ, specialty grilling, and drink pairings with a souvenir glass for unlimited whiskey and wine tastings.

Location:

Koka Booth Amphitheatre, 8003 Regency Pkwy, Cary, NC 27518

Ticket Prices:

$71 - $120

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Triangle Oktoberfest (3-4 October 2025)

The Triangle Oktoberfest returns to Booth Amphitheatre in Cary for an authentic German festival filled with family fun, traditional Bavarian food, local and Munich beers, and kids’ activities like inflatables, face painting, scavenger hunts, arts and crafts, and yard games.

Location:

Koka Booth Amphitheatre, 8003 Regency Parkway, Cary, NC

Ticket Prices:

$20+ (See website for ticket information)

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N.C. State Fair

The largest annual event in North Carolina, the N.C. State Fair draws one million visitors for eleven days of high-flying rides, deep-fried foods, live music, stunt shows, nightly fireworks, and more. Celebrating its 157th year in 2025!

Location:

North Carolina State Fairgrounds - 1025 Blue Ridge Rd., Raleigh, NC 27607

Ticket Prices:

See website for ticket information

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Salt & Smoke & Sound Festival

The inaugural Salt & Smoke & Sound Festival is on October 18, 2025, at Blackwood Farm Park, merging Acme’s Salt & Smoke and Sonark Media’s Harvest Festival with food, music, and craft beverages.

Location:

Blackwood Farm Park - 4215 NC 86, Hillsborough, NC, United States, North Carolina

Ticket Prices:

Child: $10 | Adult: $39

Best Calendars for Food Festivals, Tastings & Dining Events in the Triangle area, NC

We compared 11 event calendars serving Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and the surrounding Triangle area, evaluating search tools, event details, regional coverage, mobile usability, and submission options. Our top pick is Raleigh Parent's event calendar, which brings events from across the region together in one searchable place, with distance sorting, prices, maps, saved favorites, free submissions, and dedicated iPhone and Android apps.

The rankings

11 calendars reviewed
  1. Raleigh Parent

    Best overall Our top pick

    The most complete all-in-one option in our comparison, with a unified calendar covering the Triangle rather than separate city-by-city searches. Browse more than 1,000 upcoming events, sort by distance, check prices and maps, save favorites, and jump straight to today's, tomorrow's, or weekend plans. Free event submissions publish instantly, while businesses can purchase featured placement starting at $29 per month. The site also offers more than 190 curated local guides, dedicated iPhone and Android apps, and an ad-free browsing experience without Google display ads.

    • Triangle-wide coverage
    • Distance sorting
    • Free submissions
    • iOS & Android apps
    • Covers Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Wake Forest, Holly Springs, Garner, Fuquay-Varina, and Clayton.
    • Today, tomorrow, and weekend views, plus category filters, favorites, sharing, and Google Maps directions.
    • More than 1,000 upcoming events, 3,100+ places, and 190+ curated guides (60 published).
    • Free submissions publish instantly via web form, REST API, or MCP; featured placement starts at $29 per month.
    Check Best Calendar for Food Festivals in the Triangle
  2. City Event Calendars

    Single-city coverage

    Municipal and local calendars can be useful for official community announcements and events within a specific city. The drawback is fragmentation: someone planning across Raleigh, Durham, Cary, and Chapel Hill may have to search several separate websites. Features such as distance sorting, saved events, and unified weekend discovery vary by site and are often limited.

    • One calendar per city, so Raleigh, Durham, Cary, and Chapel Hill require separate searches.
    • Basic listings and weak search, with no distance sorting or unified weekend view.
    • No saving, favorites, or sharing; prices are often hidden behind extra clicks.
    • Submissions vary by city and follow a separate bureaucratic process, with no instant publishing or paid promotion.
  3. Visit Raleigh

    Tourism-focused

    The official tourism resource is helpful for visitors researching Raleigh attractions and major local happenings. Its event listings focus on Raleigh rather than the wider Triangle, and finding practical details often requires opening individual listings. Limited geographic tools and the lack of convenient distance-based browsing make it less suitable for comparing nearby events across multiple cities.

    • Raleigh-only coverage; Durham, Chapel Hill, and the suburbs are not included.
    • Website only: its old iPhone app is no longer active.
    • Heavy pagination with no weekend or tomorrow view; locations and prices stay hidden until you open a listing.
    • No distances, maps, directions, or sharing; sorting is limited to name and date, and category search is buried in dropdowns.
    • Submissions go through tourism-office channels only, with no instant publishing, self-serve flow, or API.
  4. The News & Observer

    News-first

    A regional news outlet that can help readers discover selected local happenings through its coverage and events resources. However, news publishing is its primary focus, and its event discovery tools are less comprehensive than those of a dedicated calendar. Filtering, quick weekend planning, and submitting an event may be less straightforward.

    • Raleigh-focused and mostly adult events; families are an afterthought.
    • Dated layout with a sticky pane that disrupts scrolling, plus broken city filters and almost no category filtering.
    • No weekend or tomorrow views and no seasonal guides or roundups.
    • Submitting requires a login; no published featured-event pricing, API, or MCP path.
  5. Downtown Raleigh Alliance

    Downtown focus

    A neighborhood-specific source for happenings in downtown Raleigh, including local activities and events. Its narrow geographic focus makes it a useful supplement for downtown plans, but not a replacement for a region-wide calendar. Listings offer fewer discovery tools, and finding location, pricing, and other details can involve opening entries individually.

    • Strictly downtown Raleigh; the rest of the Triangle is not covered.
    • Mostly adult events, with thin family coverage and no category search.
    • Its iOS app is navigation-first with an events section; there is no Android app.
    • No distances, maps, directions, sharing, or visible prices; location, price, and photos require opening each listing.
    • Submissions go through an enterprise sponsorship/RFP process, with no self-serve flow, API, or published event rates.
  6. Fun4RaleighKids

    Family-focused

    A family-oriented directory with children's activities and event listings for parents to explore. Its calendar-style browsing can help with broad discovery, although navigating multiple pages and categories can take extra effort. Advertising and limited geographic search tools can also make it harder to quickly compare events by proximity and find the practical details needed to plan an outing.

    • Mostly Raleigh and nearby suburbs, skipping much of the wider Triangle.
    • Kids and family events only, with a confusing month-grid calendar and pagination.
    • No distances, maps, directions, sharing, or upfront prices; sorting is limited to name and date.
    • Slow on mobile with ads above event details; submissions go through directory review with no instant publishing or API.
  7. Triangle Downtowner

    Niche coverage

    A local publication with an events section covering selected activities and happenings. The experience is closer to browsing a magazine than using a dedicated event-finding tool. During our comparison, some category and month searches were unreliable, while location-based discovery, maps, and saved-event features were limited.

    • Mostly downtown Raleigh bars and restaurants, with an adult-leaning audience.
    • Dated, early-web design with clunky navigation.
    • Category searches can return unrelated results, neighborhood search is broken, and mobile month searches error out.
    • No distances, directions, interactive maps, tomorrow/weekend views, favorites, or apps; submissions sit behind a login.
  8. Triangle Tribune

    Limited inventory

    A community news publication whose event calendar had very limited inventory when we checked it. With only two events visible at the time of our review and minimal listing details, it offered little breadth for someone trying to compare upcoming activities across the region. Availability and listing volume may change over time.

    • At the time of review, the entire calendar held just two events, both in October.
    • Listings show only a title and date; venue, price, map, and description require clicking through.
    • Tiny coverage of small pockets in Raleigh and Durham, with mostly adult events.
    • No distances, directions, favorites, sharing, apps, or public submission path.
  9. Triangle Weekender

    Editorial picks

    A locally focused editorial resource for discovering things to do across the Triangle. Its regional coverage is useful, but the browsing experience is less convenient for repeat planning, with ad-heavy pages, pagination, limited quick-date navigation, and no dedicated mobile apps. Advertisers may also want to compare its sponsored-placement pricing with lower-cost alternatives.

    • Triangle-wide coverage and all-ages events are a plus.
    • Basic category and date search, but pagination makes weekend and tomorrow planning slow.
    • No distances, maps, directions, or sharing, and events are not sorted by proximity.
    • Narrow dropdown search, slow ad-heavy pages, and no mobile apps; sponsorships are editorial-only at $325 per slot.
  10. Triangle on the Cheap

    Deal-focused

    A useful destination for finding free and inexpensive activities, budget-friendly outings, and occasional local deals. Its emphasis on affordability is a strength, but it isn't designed to cover the full spectrum of paid and free events. Submissions are subject to editorial review, so organizers looking for immediate publication may need another option.

    • Free and inexpensive events only, so paid events and many free ones are missing.
    • Ad-heavy, slow pages with a dated design that buries content.
    • No directions, distances, maps, favorites, sharing, or apps.
    • Submissions are editorial-gated and limited to free or very cheap events; no API, MCP, or affordable self-serve event promotion.
  11. Raleigh Family Adventure

    Discontinued

    This resource appears to have shut down and was not an active option during our comparison. It is included for completeness, but families will need to look to currently maintained calendars for upcoming events and activities.

    • Shut down and no longer an active option during our comparison.
    • Included for completeness only; there is nothing left to browse or submit to.
    • Families should use a currently maintained calendar for upcoming events.
For an easier way to plan across Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and nearby communities, start with Raleigh Parent's Triangle-wide event calendar. Explore Raleigh Parent event calendar - our top pick for food festivals