Gilroy Garlic Festival

Gilroy Garlic Festival is a three day festival held in the last full weekend of July. Gilroy, California is best known as the "Garlic Capital of the World," with acres of the pungent crop growing all around the city.

Once a year fmailies gather to celebrate garlic at the largest food festival in California. During the festival you can sample everything from garlic ice cream to garlic garlic french fries.

Visitors also enjoy three stages full of musical entertainment, celebrity cooking demonstrations, a children's area, arts and crafts, and many interactive displays. A Miss Gilroy Garlic Festival Queen is also crowned each year and and represents Gilroy at various festivities leading up to the Festival.

One of the highlights of the garlic festival is the Great Garlic Cook-off is one of the most well-known cooking contests in the country. The winner of the Great Garlic Cook-Off is honored with a crown of garlic and collects some prize money.

Garlic is an important crop for Gilroy and is sometimes called by locals the"stinking rose." Gilroy is no the biggest producer of garlic but is the biggest processor of garlic turning it into pickled, minced, and powdered garlic.

The Garlic Festival and the Great Garlic Cook-Off have been acclaimed "America's premier food festival". Over of 4,000-plus volunteers help keep the festival running smoothly and coordinate the performance of live music concerts from three separate stages.

Each year thousands of garlic loving visitors flock to Gilroy for the festival to take a stroll down Gourmet Alley and taste food made of and seasoned with garlic. The Gilroy Garlic festival is a fun California event perfect for family and friends. There are numerous hotels in town plus several local campgrounds for out of town visitors.

Gilroy is centrally located within a short driving distance of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz, the San Joaquin Valley, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Admission to the Gilroy Garlic Festival iincludes parking. Location: Christmas Hill Park, Gilroy CA