The Gilroy Garlic Festival returned Friday after a six-year absence, drawing thousands of visitors from across the country to the South County Grove at Gilroy Gardens for three days of garlicky food, live entertainment and community fundraising.
The festival, which ran July 25-27, marked its comeback at a new venue with limited daily capacity of 3,000 guests. The event sold out in advance for all three days.
“I’m glad that we’re back, getting Gilroy, getting this community back to what it does best,” Gilroy Mayor Greg Bozzo said at the festival. “As always, like every single year, we’ve got some challenges, like the length of the food lines, but I am super excited about the festival being back.”
The food lines proved to be Friday’s biggest challenge, with some attendees saying they waited up to two hours for garlic-infused dishes from Gourmet Alley.
Jason Harding of Morgan Hill said the wait was “pretty bad” and called it “the biggest issue,” noting that unlike previous festivals, “you only had one area to go get food” rather than multiple food stations.
Local artist Whitney Pintello of Gilroy, who attended this year’s event multiple days and had her own booth in the festival, said the lines improved “exponentially” after organizers made adjustments.
By Saturday, organizers had obtained more help, provided extra training and started service earlier. “They worked it out honestly very quickly, and everyone seems happy with the result.”
The festival had been on hiatus since 2019, following a mass shooting that killed three people and wounded 17 others. This year’s return featured enhanced security measures and a more limited size compared to previous years when attendance reached tens of thousands.
Live cooking demonstrations were a major feature, where gathered audiences could learn how to make a wide variety of garlic-based dishes. Among the demonstrators was Chef Carlos Pineda, a Gilroy native and head chef at Kneaded Culinary Academy, a vocational program for underserved youths.
Pineda emphasized the festival’s role in community building.
“We’re known as Gilroy, a town that has a spice for life, and that spice is the garlic,” he said. “The goal was to bring the community together.”
Pineda demonstrated his signature pepper steak sandwich with garlic scampi and garlic bread alongside Ken Christopher from Christopher Ranch, a major local garlic supplier and chief sponsor of the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
“Although it only lasts three days, the Garlic Festival for us is year-round,” Pineda said. “Food for us creates community, and that’s what I like to do, and that is what the festival does.”
The festival featured traditional attractions including the Pyro Chefs of Gourmet Alley, who served garlic calamari, scampi, pepper steak sandwiches and garlic fries. Daily garlic braiding demonstrations took place at 11am and 1pm, with garlic topping demos at noon.
In a modern twist, cooking demonstrations were livestreamed on YouTube and made available on the Garlic Festival Association website, allowing people who couldn’t attend to participate virtually.
“People can see this now on the livestream, or they can save it on their social media,” Pineda said. “They can watch it with us and make it at home, so they can also taste it if they’re not local or they’re not able to make it to the festival.”
The festival showcased many creative culinary applications of the titular spice, with vendors offering unusual garlic-infused items including garlic ice cream, garlic beer and garlic kettle corn, among others.
For many attendees, the return was emotional.
Mike Bristow, of Gilroy, said, “I love the Gilroy Garlic Festival, I’ve been coming here for a long time, and I’m so happy it’s back.”
Phillip Audet, of Campbell, who last attended the festival in 1988, praised the new venue, calling the experience “beautiful” and “gorgeous.”
Mayor Bozzo emphasized that while garlic remains central to the festival’s identity, the event’s true value lies in fostering relationships and supporting local nonprofits through fundraising efforts. To date, the Garlic Festival Association has donated more than $12 million to local charities since its inception in 1979.
