With the State Fair of Texas canceled, concessionaires will not be frying up entries for the fair’s internationally-famous food competition, the Big Tex Choice Awards. But the State Fair has launched an online bracket for fans to vote for their favorite Big Tex Choice Awards winners from the past 15 years.
Which do you prefer, 2013′s fried Thanksgiving dinner or 2012′s fried bacon cinnamon roll? Which is better, Abel Gonzales' winning fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwich — an inaugural winner from 2005 — or fried bubblegum — the oddly alluring winner from 2011? Fried Coke or Fla’mango Tango?
The online vote begins today, Sept. 15, and includes five rounds of voting. (The dishes were put in randomized order, so there’s no logic to why certain dishes are pitted against one another.)
The winner will be announced Oct. 13 on the State Fair Facebook page.
Without 24 days of fair food, the State Fair of Texas is also operating a drive-thru event in September and October for those who want to pick up corny dogs, cotton candy and the like in their cars. Plus, many restaurants around town are launching their own fried-food menus in honor of the fair.
The winning dish in the online bracket gets a Big Tex Choice Awards trophy and special signage for the concessionaire’s food stand in 2021. (And beyond: Concessionaires display their Big Tex Choice Awards winning signs proudly — and they lure new customers to their booths every year.) State Fair spokeswoman Karissa Condoianis also notes that the 2020 winner gets “lifetime bragging rights.”
Big Tex Choice Awards winners reap financial benefits, too. Five-time Big Tex Choice Awards winner Gonzales — the winningest concessionaire — says having five signs on his booths “means a whole lot more to your bottom line,” he says.
“As an example, we had never sold 1,000 of any item until [2005],” when his fried PB&J&B won a Big Tex Choice Award. “And we sold 1,000 within the first weekend.”
Gonzales says the cancellation of the State Fair is “crushing.” Beyond selling food at two booths at the State Fair of Texas, Gonzales operates a catering company and owns a restaurant named Cocina Italiano, which opened on Harry Hines Boulevard last year.
“We struggled our first year, just like every other first-year restaurant, trying to get the name out there,” he says. “It seemed like we were barely starting to get our feet underneath us and COVID hit. The funny thing is, I keep thinking back to that: Right before the first shutdown, we’d just had our best week ever at the restaurant.”
The State Fair of Texas' online competition can’t replace the money Gonzales and dozens of other concessionaires would have made over 24 days at the fair, but it’ll shine a spotlight on their past successes.
Condoianis notes that the Big Tex Choice Awards "are one of the reasons the State Fair of Texas is known around the globe.”
“Year after year, this competition has elevated our fair food to the next level — and while it wasn’t plausible to hold the traditional competition and event this year, we decided what better way to carry on our celebration of fair food than to let our fans vote online for their all-time favorite winner in the Fair Food Madness: Big Tex Choice Awards Championship.”
The first round of the competition runs Sept. 15-21. The flight of 32 foods will be whittled to 16 for a second round Sept. 22-28. Then it’s down to eight in a vote Sept. 29-Oct. 5. The “fried-nal four” is Oct. 6-8 and the final round is Oct. 9-12.
“I hope the general fairgoers, the people who really enjoy the Big Tex Choice Awards, get involved in it,” Gonzales says. “It seems like it could be a lot of fun.”
