More Details on Aaron Franklin’s New Fire-Focused Food Festival

It turns out that Aaron Franklin and company’s food festival isn’t happening this year, according to the man himself. Instead, he told Eater it should take place sometime in May 2017. While there is no specific date pegged down, the weekend fete will focus on what he knows best: fire.

The unnamed-as-of-yet festival will will involve the same three people. There is Franklin; Mike Thelin, the co-founder of Portland's food festival Feast and culinary curator of the city’s Pine Street Market food hall; and James Moody, co-owner of Mohawk who left his production company Transmission Events this year.

The trio were aiming to hold the festival this year, but couldn’t make it work because of their schedules and the perfect timing of the festival. They also didn’t want to just hold the event for the sake of it and "not really give it the attention that we want," Franklin said.

The festival will be "super DIY, real hands-on kind of stuff," Franklin described. This means a friendly, relaxed event full of delicious food. One of the requirements for participating chefs: "You have to hang out." Franklin explained: "We’re here to hang out, drink beer, and have a good time."

As for the lineup: "I’ve got verbal yeses from a lot of friends," Franklin said, but no names have been revealed. "The list looks awesome."

In case of another rainy spring like this year, which led to the cancellation of Austin Food & Wine Festival, Untapped, and Levitation Festival, Franklin assures, "We’ve got very good rain plans."

Franklin is headed back to Chicago for another three-day pop-up in July. Later in September, tickets are already sold out for the return of his barbecue event at Feast in Portland.