SACRAMENTO — Cajun charm is in the spotlight in the Sacramento region this Father’s Day weekend.
Two Crawdad festivals kick off on Saturday; one is the annual Crawdad Festival in Isleton and the other is at Cal Expo in Sacramento.
In Isleton on Friday afternoon, vendors could be seen setting up their tents in anticipation of a busy weekend.
Maggie Dixon, owner of Roscoe’s BBQ and Lumpia in Elk Grove, is one of them
“I’m like, ‘Oh, my god. I’m going to sell at the crawdad festival!’ Dixon said.
Her bright orange tent will be one of more than 120 vendors gathering for the decades-old festival.
Sebastian Maldonado said it started in the late 1980s after Isleton became a sister city with Bowbridge, Louisiana.
“It’s a community festival and always has been,” Maldonado said.
Described as a family-friendly celebration, the festival features live music, a carnival and more than 15,000 pounds of crawfish.
The festival takes place on the same weekend as the Crawdad Festival at Cal Expo, which has caused some confusion and debate about who to go to. For Maldonado, though, he hopes people will have a good time at both.
“We don’t really care. We don’t mind. We’re the original, so we think it’s cool,” Maldonado said.
