The street fair and festival combo known as the Riverbank Cheese & Wine Exposition will return to the downtown area on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 8 and 9 with a few tweaks made by the sponsoring Riverbank Rotary Club to an event that has proved hugely successful year after year.
Filling Santa Fe Street between Second and Seventh streets for two days with a usually mellow, family type crowd, the event will offer a variety of musical entertainment, food and drink, vendors of every sort and games and rides for the children.
Admission is free. Festival hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
Wine tasters can raise their glasses both indoors in the Community Center and outside in tents attached to it depending on the visitor’s preference. Tasting was confined to the Center for many years until being moved outside to the vicinity of the gazebo in the last couple of years.
The cheese, that tasty stuff which persuaded residents to launch this festival 35 years ago when the town contained a couple of cheese factories, has been moved out of its own pavilion this year and will be offered for sampling and purchase on Santa Fe Street near the library.
Stages have shrunk from three to two but there will be just as much action on them as before. The Hawk 104 Stage will again be located at the east end of the festival at Seventh Street offering rock and other types of music. The Community Stage in the Plaza del Rio at Third Street will cater to more local bands including country music and other entertainment.
Vendors, 200 of which are promised, will have booths down the center of Santa Fe Street between Third and Fourth streets to permit good visibility and access to permanent businesses. But the rest of the festival is due to remain “open” with booths set up at the edge of the street.