In this on‑camera conversation, a chef‑host interviews the organizers of the 4th annual Florida Key Lime Pie Festival, scheduled for Saturday, January 17, at the Exploration Tower in Port Canaveral. The organizers explain that the new venue offers ample parking and proximity to the newly opened Cruise Terminal 1, allowing cruise passengers from ships like Disney, Royal Caribbean, and a German liner to attend. They anticipate 7,500‑10,000 visitors, weather permitting. The festival will feature a Miss Florida Key Lime Pie pageant, a famed key‑lime‑pie eating contest, a Key Lime Chili Heads hot‑sauce competition, and a Bartenders Challenge for key‑lime‑pie martinis and margaritas. Entertainment includes world‑champion hula‑hooper Rachel Lust, chainsaw‑juggler/fire‑breather Brady, contortionist escape artist Nick Notorious, the house band HyperSona, teen duo Diamond Dixie Band, steel‑band Biano, and one‑man band Mark Dobson. A seafood food court will host local favorites such as Dixie Crossroads, Fish Lips, Grill Seafood, Sumo Monkey, and Rusty Seafood & Oyster House. The festival’s first libation bar will serve full‑strength liquor, craft beers from Two Henry Brewing, and key‑lime wines (including a new coconut‑infused variety) from Keel & Curly Winery. Promotion relies on Facebook, the official website (www.floridakeelympiefestival.com), and deals through LivingSocial, Groupon, and DealChicken. The conversation ends with the chef expressing excitement and confirming attendance.
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This is something that's leading up— the reason we got in contact with Louie and the store was they're having the Florida Key Lime Festival.
Actually, we're having our 4th annual Florida Key Lime Pie Festival. It's going to be held a week from this Saturday, January 17th. We're going to be at the Exploration Tower in Port Canaveral this year. Each year we've moved the festival, trying to find the perfect home.. And I believe that we have found the new home for the festival. Port Canaveral is one of the largest and most upcoming ports in the world. It leads right now, I believe, second in the world in cruise ship passengers, just under Miami. We just had our newest cruise terminal, Cruise Terminal Number 1, open a week ago, which is about 500 feet from our Gate Number 3 of our festival. The day of our festival, there'll be 4 of our standard ships that we have here in the port, which is Disney, Royal Caribbean, um, drawing a blank on the other one. We have a German ship that's coming in as a port of call that day. As part of our festival, we're having our Miss Florida Key Lime Pie Pageant. We're having our ever-famous key lime pie eating contest. We're having our Key Lime Chili Heads hot sauce competition. And then we're having the Best of Florida's Bartenders Challenge for the best key lime pie martini and key lime pie margarita. Our event this year will be emceed by Allison Walker from Bright House Channel 13 out of Orlando, a very famous news anchor, entertainment reporter here in Central Florida. We have an array of entertainment to include Rachel Lust, who's the 2014 World Champion Hula Hooper coming from Ohio. We have Brady the Class Clown coming down from Pennsylvania. Brady's been with us since our first year.. He is a chainsaw juggler, fire breather, fire— does some amazing juggling acts with fire and swords and knives. We have Dallas the Fire Guy coming out of Clearwater Beach, Florida, with his son Nick Notorious. Nick is a contortionist escape artist where the audience actually ties him up with a rope, chains, puts him in a straitjacket, and he escapes out of it. It's quite a show. We have HyperSona, who is the house band for the House of Blues in Margaritaville in Orlando. And we've just recently discovered a new duo, which I would consider to be the next Dixie Chicks, and the name is Diamond Dixie Band. They're two teenage girls out of Orlando, 17 and 15 years old. If you go to YouTube, Diamond Dixie. They're incredible. We also have a steel band performance by Biano. He plays here in our store regularly. Then we have Mark Dobson, the one-man band, and he's quite a character with the drum on his back and banjo and guitar and trumpet and harmonica, whatnot.
And you're going to have a lot of restaurants set up that day too.
We are. We're having all the major restaurants here in Brevard County. We're doing a seafood food court which which would include Dixie Crossroads, Fish Lips, Grill Seafood, Sumo Monkey Shells of Melbourne, Rusty Seafood and Oyster House.
And I gotta go, I'm heading to Fish Lips first just because it's Fish Lips.
Fish Lips will also be doing our first ever libation bar this year. We'll be carrying full liquor. And we'll have 3 different tents set up with Florida beer, beer companies. In crafted beers. We also have Two Henry Brewing Company coming out of Plant City, Florida, which is on the West Coast, and Keel and Curly Winery with our key lime wine and our newest coconut key lime wine. Ooh. Steph, can you get Chef a sample of the coconut key lime pie? It's in the back cooler. It's incredible. They've just produced that for us in the last couple of weeks. Here we go. Sample of our shirt.
Oh, cute. That is so cute, I love it. Sheffy, you gotta put that on.
So we're excited, this is our 4th annual event, we're expecting between 7,500 and 10,000 people provided we have good weather. We did get a little report today we might have a cold nip come in. Coconut, key lime wine.
But so it sounds like you got it all hooked up for this year, and this is the 4th one. And you know, everything comes with its own set of trials and experimentation, and as this gets bigger and bigger every year. But it looks like you got a good spot for this. I was looking at the design of this Port Canaveral site, and it's just really set up perfectly for it. Lots of parking, and it'll be a nice day all along with everything.
We hope so. With the amount of cruise ships that are coming in and the one port of call ship from Germany, I think that's going to bring us a couple So they'll be coming in too? Oh wow!
I didn't even realize that. And it starts at 10 AM?
Starts at 10 AM, it goes until 6 PM. This is Saturday, January 17th.
Yep, next Saturday.
Best thing to do is go on Facebook, look for Florida Key Lime Pie Festival, or go to our festival website, which is www.floridakeelympiefestival.com.
And I actually found out about it through LivingSocial.
Nice. We do have a program with LivingSocial. Groupon and DealChicken, all of which have been very successful this year.
Very cool. That's smart.
Looking forward to it, and I'll be there for that. And I would like to see— now, is the hula hooper, is she underage?
No.
Because she should judge the martini contest.
Actually, we found Rachel some time back via social media when she was first being discovered on the Queen Latifah Show. Wow, we booked her back then, now she's booked basically every weekend across the country. Incredible act, if you get a chance go to RachelLust.com or YouTube for Rachel Lust, L-U-S-T. Rachel, Rachel.
Great, I'm posting all those links on our event link here too. Wow, this is great, Chef, that's going to be so fun.
It is, and I'm probably going to be doing it on the road from there, so we'll be able to view it on one of my Florida travels.
And everybody that's here gets invited to it too, so look for an invite from Chef for that.
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful tour of your store. I got to taste so many delicious things, all Florida, and I'm excited about the festival. And we'll be coming to you. Actually, we're doing one Saturday from Joe in Tampa.
Killing me. Yeah, two in a row in a week, Sheffy. I'm crying already.
