It is time again to squeeze the joy out of summer at the 19th annual Lemon Festival, coming to Third Avenue Village Sunday, Aug. 2, with food, music, family-friendly activities and lots of lemons.
The Lemon Festival, hosted by Third Avenue Village Association, is a summer staple for Chula Vista designed to celebrate the city’s agricultural roots with lemon peeling contests, lemon pie-eating contests, a largest lemon contest and just about anything else you can do with a lemon.
“Chula Vista for years was known as the lemon capital of the world,” said Kelly Lannom with Third Avenue Village Association. “This whole area used to be covered with lemon groves so we are celebrating that history.”
New to the festival this year will be a craft beer garden which will include a variety of hoppy delights from local brewers such as Bay Bridge Brewing, Groundswell Brewery and Novo Brazil. Mike’s Hard Lemonade will also be represented.
With as many as 25,000 people expected to be in attendance the festival continues to grow each year and represents a significant surge for the local economy.
“Events like the Lemon Festival bring in a lot of people to our area,” said Lannom. “In order to develop the city and make it into the place we want it to be, people need to realize what’s here and what we as a community have to offer. Bringing people down here, they’re able to see all the different wonderful businesses we have in the area.”
Attendees will also be able to shake their lemonade makers to live music in front of two different stages which will host bands of all genres from Latino rock to rockabilly.
Third Avenue Village Association’s goal is to make the event bigger and better each year, and this will be one of the most exciting yet, said Lannom.
“Next year will be our 20th anniversary with the festival so we will be going very big for that.”
