Park Ridge Pizza Fest

This was the first-​ever Pizza Fest, organized by the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce. It sneaked up on the events calendar unexpectedly, but we found time to attend it, since it’s so close to home. The fest took place in pretty much the same space as Taste of Park Ridge, closing off Summit Ave. between Touhy and Prospect, between the library and Metra station.
As a festival, it didn’t really have a huge setup and not much in terms of variety. All the food vendors, except for a carnival food stand, were pizza places from the area. Caponie’s, Carmine’s, and Georgio’s Chicago Pizzeria were a few of the vendors participating. There was a concert stage setup on the street and for a small festival they did pretty good at lining up shows: Foghat (big-​time 70s band) on Friday and Daryl Stuermer (Genesis & Phil Collins guitarist) as the headliner for Saturday night.
Weather did not cooperate Friday night, as a cold wind blew through at peak dinner time and dropped the temps about 15 degrees, blowing away paper plates, napkins and a light drizzle followed. Still, it did not deter us from trying pizzas, sheltered by the walls of the Metra station to shield us from the wind.
Weather notwithstanding, I was disappointed with the fest. For an event focused completely on a food, pizza in this case, I really expected a more adventurous menu from each of the participants. But instead it was the same thing pretty much across the board: cheese, sausage, or pepperoni, thin crust or deep dish. Why bother doing a fest dedicated to pizza if you don’t have something more exotic to offer as a topping: BBQ chicken, pineapple, shrimp, goat cheese, heck, even mushrooms!
But it gave me a level playing field to try. I had a Caponies brick oven sausage pizza, which was very good. One of my kids had Carmine’s cheese pizza, which had an odd-​tasting sauce and the layer cheese peeled off the top in one bite. Pizza fail! Carmine’s probably had the worst. My other son and my wife both got Giorgio’s of South Barrington’s deep dish personal-​sized cheese pizzas and those by far stood out as the best pizza at the fest. For a kid who never tried deep dish before, my son was very impressed with it and ate the whole thing.
Cost-​wise, the pizza prices were reasonable. There was a $ 5 admission fee to the fest, just to get in the gate, but if you are going to see a show, it’s a good deal. I saw the Daryl Stuermer concert and he put on almost 2 hours of Genesis material and a few of his own instrumental works mixed in. Daryl’s band sounds really good and he did a very authentic job covering Genesis, even some of it dating back to the 70s. And there was even a contingent of diehard Genesis fans, the ones who wear the Foxtrot album cover T-​shirts, in attendance.
If Pizza Fest II happens next year, I hope the participating vendors open up their cookbooks and bring out more pizza variety, putting forth some adventurous pizzas rather than just playing it safe with essentially the same selection at every booth.