By Brian Argabright
A tasty spring tradition returns to Del Rio after a year away due to the pandemic.
The annual Cajun Fest takes place Saturday at the Whitehead Memorial Museum. And while in years past the event has welcomed nearly 400 people to sit down and break bread while enjoying a savory meal of crawfish, fish and fixins, this year’s event will be a drive-thru and pickup event.
“The museum’s board of trustees had a lengthy discussion on this. Even though we want to have a full-fledged event, we still wanted to be careful and be cautious. We just didn’t feel it was the right time for 300-400 people to gather together on one area with food and alcohol. At the same time, we didn’t want people to forget about it. We will still have drive-thru pickup so people can enjoy the food,” Michael Diaz, director of the Whitehead, explained.
This will be the 16th Cajun Fest and with it comes all the great food the event has become known for providing. Each $25 ticket guarantees the person a pound of crawfish, sides of Andouille sausage, potatoes and corn and a fish plate that includes catfish, hush puppies, fries and coleslaw.
Tickets are available at the Whitehead Memorial Museum office, 1308 S. Main St., from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each weekday and Saturday until noon. Food can be picked up at the museum Saturday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
There are a limited amount of tickets available, and once they are sold out there will be no more available. Diaz said if the established ticket sales goal is not met by Saturday morning then tickets would be available at the door during the event, but an official announcement regarding that development would be made on the museum’s official Facebook page.
The monies raised through Cajun Fest will be used to maintain the exhibits at the museum. Diaz explained that without the museum, many of the historic artifacts at the museum would be unable to preserved and pieces of this area’s history would be lost.
“We use these funds to continue our mission,” Diaz said. “Last year was difficult for us. We had to shut down for two months. A lot of our funding depends on events like this, but it also depends a lot on tourism and that went down dramatically. Without fundraisers or visitors, like through school field trips or tour groups, our income dropped drastically.”
