Food vendors have to wait as long as 10 years to get a booth at the Fryeburg Fair.
FRYEBURG – It can take 10 years to get a food vendor’s spot at Fryeburg Fair because you’ve got to offer something new, unique and good. No more french fries or onion rings, said midway superintendent Dean Baker.
Baker, who screens all food stand applicants, said some people wait for years to get one of the 200 or so stalls at the state’s largest fair. Some stands, such as Sunflower Farm Pizza Show and Chuck’s Fish Place, become famous, making it tough for competitors to get a spot.
“Some people wait for 10 years to get in here,” Baker said Tuesday, standing among a few stands with smells of fried onions and sausages mixing in the air. “They have to send pictures of their stands, a list of fairs they have participated in, and describe what their product is. If it is food, it has to be new and unique.”
Baker said he seeks ethnic cuisine or food with a creative twist, such as Jim and Jessie Howard’s business On A Stick, which sells grilled chicken and portobello mushroom wraps with lettuce, onion, cheese, salsa and ranch dressing.
“Five years,” Jim Howard said of his wait for the 10-foot-long stand he works with his wife.
Rent for a stand at the fair is $55 per foot of frontage space, Baker explained, which is a decent price considering the thousands of potential customers – Sunday there were 27,000 – who pour through the fair each day.
But for the newcomers, it will take time to establish reputation and then tradition. “It’s our first year; it’s going to take a while for people to find out where we are,” Jim Howard said.
The Howards are, however, well situated for exposure, or, as the case may be, for some fierce competition with one of the celebrity food stands of the fair.
Across the street is Mr. and Mrs. Sausage, a family-run stand with a secret sausage recipe.
“I’m Mr. Sausage Junior,” Lee Brawn said, introducing himself on Tuesday. He took over the stand from his father, who died, and his mother, who has retired, he said.
“It’s a homemade recipe,” said Brawn, who lives in Brunswick. “My father started it by mistake. He mixed up a batch of sausage, and I could hear him swearing in the background.” His father may have messed up the spices, but it was a fortuitous error. Based on the stand’s 13-year history at the fair, the sausage will be fueling the success of Brawn’s stand for a long time.
Brawn said his stand sells 8,000 sausages during the eight days of the fair, at $6 a sandwich.
But it is grueling work. “We work 16- to 18-hour days,” he said. “You have to tell yourself every day that you’re going to have five months off” during the winter.
Dean said another new food for the fair is smoked turkey leg, found at a two-year-old stall called Yogi’s Concession.
Greg Shorey, the owner, said Maine people are starting to acquire a taste for the huge, succulent turkey leg, which tastes like smoked ham.
“It seems to be picking up,” Shorey said. “People from the South and West know what it is immediately.”
But if it is good, Mainers will accept it. “They’re catching on more and more up here,” Shorey said.
Baker said, however, that Shorey ordered too many legs last year, and had to scale back some this time around.
It takes time to establish tradition. And patience.
Jim Howard said of the pace of business at his stall on the third day of the fair: “It was better today than yesterday.”
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