Historic Ashtabula Harbor

08/31/2026

Celebrate and sample all things local with the Taste of Bula Passport for Ashtabula Local Food Festival: Harvest in the Harbor THIS SUNDAY, September 6!

Grab your passport and explore the flavors of the Historic Ashtabula Harbor. Each stamp you collect at participating locations supports local growers and restaurants, while you sample what makes our harbor lakefront venues unique. Purchasing a Passport enters you into the Grand Prize drawing for a day at Kosicek’s Treehouse, plus three tickets to vote in our Salsa & Flower Bouquet competitions!

We are celebrating over 100 local growers all day from 10a-4pm. We will have a Salsa Competition AND Flower Bouquet Competition at Riverbend Hotel and Suites, Trademark Collection by Wyndham using locally sourced ingredients! We need taste testers, too!

Bridge Street will be full with an expanded Ashtabula Farmers Market, food trucks, cooking demos, live music at Carlisle Pavilion, vendors, sidewalk chalk art, goat petting, JUNGLE TERRY, and gourd painting!

Let’s celebrate local food and over 100+ local growers in Ashtabula County🥕

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/taste-of-bula-passport

08/27/2026

Coming up Sunday, September 6 is Ashtabula Local Food Festival: Harvest in the Harbor!

Try your hand at our Salsa Competition or Flower Bouquet Competition at Riverbend Hotel and Suites, Trademark Collection by Wyndham using locally sourced ingredients! We need taste testers, too!

Featuring a Taste of Ashtabula Passport — eat your way down Bridge Street for just $20. Each passport purchased makes you eligible to enter and win a full day at Kosicek Vineyards treehouse!

10am-4pm on Bridge Street with an expanded Ashtabula Farmers Market, food trucks, cooking demos, live music at Carlisle Pavilion, vendors, sidewalk chalk art, goat petting, JUNGLE TERRY, and gourd painting!

Let’s celebrate local food and over 100+ local growers in Ashtabula County🥕

Purchase passports, enter the salsa and flower competitions, sign up to volunteer and more:

https://www.historicashtabulaharbor.org/ashtabula-local-food-festival

The Ashtabula Local Food Festival on Sept. 6 will feature a fresh salsa competition highlighting the county's tomatoes, along with a flower bouquet contest, farmers market, food trucks, and a $20 "Taste of Ashtabula" passport.

08/27/2026

There’s been a lot of interest in the Faith Lutheran Church at the top of Bridge Street… exciting things coming soon! Sale this weekend!

08/25/2026

It’s been a beautiful summer in the Historic Ashtabula Harbor. We have quite a few events coming up to soak up the remaining warm weather! ☀️

- Ashtabula Farmers Market every Sunday thru October 11 (10a-1p)
- Ashtabula Local Food Festival: Harvest in the Harbor Sunday, September 6 (10a-4p)
- Harbor Night Market Friday, September 18 (5-8p)
- Bula Brewfest Saturday, September 19 (2-6p)
- Punk Rock Flea Market Sunday, September 20 (11a-5p)

historicashtabulaharbor.org

08/24/2026

The Ashtabula Local Food Festival on September 6 needs your support!

This is a county-wide celebration of what our farms, markets, and makers already do all year. Nine farmers markets. More than 100 local farms. Wineries growing their own grapes, honey producers, flower farms, u-pick orchards, and the shops and kitchens that put it all on a plate!

Pulling that off takes people. Here's where we need hands:

Setup and teardown
Salsa competition support (serving samples, tracking ballots, restocking chips and cups)
Flower bouquet competition check-in at the Riverbend Hotel
Information table and festival map
Restaurant passport stamping
Kids activities
Food truck row traffic and line management

Sign up to volunteer, purchase a tasting passport, and more:
https://www.historicashtabulaharbor.org/ashtabula-local-food-festival

08/21/2026

Join the Ashtabula Lighthouse & Restoration Society for the annual Fish Fry by the Lake TOMORROW Saturday, August 22 from 2-7pm at Lake Shore Park and help raise money to support the efforts to preserve and maintain the historic landmark!

Enjoy a fish or shrimp dinner with baked potato or french fries, coleslaw, roll and butter, and a beverage, for just a $15 donation. Carryout available! Live music by George Hertzel, raffle baskets, lighthouse merch, a 50/50 raffle and much more! Tickets available the day of the event. See you by the lake! ⚓️🌊

More information here: https://www.ashtabulalighthouse.com/

08/18/2026

Calling all salsa makers and tasters! A salsa contest needs two kinds of people: the brave ones who show up with a cooler and something to prove, and the rest of us, who show up with a chip!

The Ashtabula Local Food Festival is a celebration of the 100+ farms and growers working across this county, and salsa might be the most direct way to taste what they do. Everything in the bowl comes from somewhere close, right here on Ashtabula County soil.

If you make salsa --

Bring your best batch to the Riverbend Hotel on Sunday, September 6 at 10am. One rule: most of your ingredients have to come from Ashtabula County. That is not a hard ask this time of the year. Tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro, corn, all of it is coming out of local gardens and farm stands right now. (Check the Ashtabula Local Food Guide at AshtabulaLocalFood.org if you need a grower)!

Mild, hot, fruity, smoky, green, chunky, or so thin you can drink it. Family recipe or something you invented Tuesday. Bring it and let the community decide!

The winner gets a half day in the treehouse Kosicek Vineyards! Cozy, elevated, tucked in the trees, built for a small group to sit back, sip, and unwind in total seclusion with the vines rolling out below. Not a bad payoff for a bowl of tomatoes...

If you eat salsa --

Show up. That is the entire job description! We will have a People's Choice award alongside our esteemed panel of Judges taste testing. Cups, bowls, napkins, and chips are provided. Bring an appetite!

Date and time: Sunday, September 6 at 10am
Location: Riverbend Hotel
Sign up to compete: https://bit.ly/LocalFoodFestival2026
Only $15 to enter the competition!

Somebody in this county makes the best salsa in it... let's find out who!

08/17/2026

Join us in the Historic Ashtabula Harbor for the 5th Annual Ashtabula Local Food Festival on Sunday, September 6 from 10a-4p!

Ashtabula County grows more food than people realize. We have nine farmers markets across the county, with more than 100 farms. We are lucky to have meat processors, honey producers, flower farms, u-pick orchards, wineries growing their own grapes, and shops that put all of it on the shelves.

This year we are excited to join the Ashtabula Farmers Market with food trucks, cooking demos, live music, and a restaurant passport to celebrate all we have to offer here. Over at the Riverbend Hotel, we will have a salsa competition and flower bouquet competition, both judged on what came out of Ashtabula County soil. Come ready to taste — and we will have some fun for the kids on the street too!

The Ashtabula Local Food festival started from a simple question: who is actually growing food here? The answer became the Ashtabula Local Food Guide, a free annual booklet listing every local producer. When Harbor Gardens opened in 2022 and pinned all of it to a five by seven foot map on the wall, the picture got clearer. Ashtabula has a local food movement!

The case for local food is not complicated. It is fresher and more nutrient dense than food shipped in from across the world. It keeps money and jobs here in our county. It makes us more resilient when things get uncertain (and it tastes better!)

Ashtabula County has rich soil, fresh water, clean air, and growers who know what to do with all three. The Ashtabula Local Food Festival is our chance to celebrate it all together.

Sign up for the salsa and flower bouquet competitions, purchase a tasting passport, sign up to volunteer with us, and more:
historicashtabulaharbor.org/ashtabula-local-food-festival

08/16/2026

Farmers Market Sunday from 10a-1p!

08/12/2026

Join the Ashtabula Lighthouse & Restoration Society for the annual Fish Fry by the Lake on Saturday, August 22 from 2-7pm at Lake Shore Park and help raise money to support the efforts to preserve and maintain the historic landmark!

Enjoy a fish or shrimp dinner with baked potato or french fries, coleslaw, roll and butter, and a beverage, for just a $15 donation. Carryout available! Live music by George Hertzel, raffle baskets, lighthouse merch, a 50/50 raffle and much more! Tickets available the day of the event. See you by the lake! ⚓️🌊

More information here: https://www.ashtabulalighthouse.com/