Datil Fest 2026

Datil Fest is Palatka's free, day-long festival for the datil pepper. We're a vendor there, not the organiser: the fest is run by Mayhem Datil Pepper Farms, UF/IFAS Extension Putnam County and Revitalize Historic Palatka. The official site is datilfest.com, and anything that changes will change there first.

We'll have whole dried pods, ground datil, Datil Honey, our new datil rubs, The Cracker datil hot sauce and datil peanuts, plus the Black Marlin × Datil Fest Tee, which is official Datil Fest merch. Our booth is open 9 to 5.

The Cracker Datil Hot Sauce

$10.00 Was $11.99 · Datil Fest price

Everything we're bringing ↓

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When and where

• Saturday, November 14, 2026, 9 AM to 6 PM.
• Riverfront Park, historic downtown Palatka, FL 32177, on the St. Johns River. Open it in Google Maps.
• Free admission. It's a family event, and well-behaved, leashed pets are welcome.
• Bring a lawn chair. The fest has some chairs and shade tents, but says there won't be enough chairs for everyone.

Schedule

From the fest's events page and music line-up:

• 9 AM to 5 PM: the Datil & Specialty Market. That's the vendors, us included.
• 10 AM to 12:15 PM: Amateur Datil Showdown. Savory entries are judged 10 to 11, sweet ones 11:15 to 12:15.
• 12 noon to 3 PM: the chef competition for Florida's Best Datil Chef, in two tasting sessions: 12:00 to 1:15 and 1:30 to 3:00. Tasters vote for the winner.

Live music on the riverfront:

• 10 to 11 AM: Palatka's Jelly Rollers
• 11:15 AM to 12:15 PM: Duet Again (Margie Nelson and Lorri Gill)
• 12:30 to 1:30 PM: Curtis Willis & Friends
• 2 to 3 PM: Jeff Howell
• 3:30 to 5:30 PM: The Sauce Boss & Extra Sauce. He cooks a pot of gumbo on stage and serves it to the crowd, and the Best Datil Chef winner is announced during the set.

Tickets

You don't need a ticket to get in. Entry is free.

The one thing you pay for is the chef tasting: $35 for one session, and you pick the 12:00 or the 1:30. Tickets are sold by Revitalize Historic Palatka, the fest's non-profit co-host, not by us. Buy them from the links on the fest's culinary tasting page. The fest says the tastings sold out in 2024 and 2025.

Getting there from St. Augustine

Palatka is about 28 miles from downtown St. Augustine, most of it west on SR 207. Allow about 45 minutes with no traffic.

Parking is free all over downtown Palatka. The fest suggests street parking north and west of the riverfront, or the city lots, all 2 to 10 minutes' walk away. The spaces right by the riverfront fill up early.

What's a datil pepper?

The chile St. Augustine is known for, and one of the few American peppers on Slow Food's Ark of Taste. It's sweet and fruity up front with a tangy, habanero-class heat behind it, around 100,000 to 300,000 Scoville units. Our whole dried datil chiles are the place to start if you want to cook with them.