The Seventh Annual Decatur BBQ, Blues, & Bluegrass Festival was held from 2PM to 11PM in Oakhurst Saturday. (The hours were extended from 3:30PM to 9:30PM last year.) The red lines on the (stylized) map below show (roughly) the area fenced in (which required a $5 entry fee for adults):
Around 8PM, there was a good crowd (but not packed) inside the fenced area, and all the surrounding restaurants and pubs (which are open now) were doing a brisk business. A good crowd was seated on the grassy knoll, watching entertainers on the stage.
Bands included Well Strung,
Solstice Sisters, Porch Bottom Boys, and Dappled Grays. There was a wheeled choo-choo train for the little ones. The grills will be fired up by O.B.'s Barbecue in McDonough.
There was pulled pork sandwiches with slaw and chips for $8, chicken
dinners for $8, and, of course, smoked ribs for $10. Sweetwater, Peroni, Miller
Lite and Sierra Nevada beers were sold. [no coolers were allowed]
East Lake Drive, W. Hill St., and Oakview south of W. Hill were kept open for cars. Parking extended down the streets radiating out from the Oakhurst Business District.
The lines were long (15-20 people in each) for the BBQ and ribs.
The U-Joint, Kavarna, Steinbecks, Mo Jo Pizza Mezcalito's; and the other places across the street from the park were bustling.
Presumably, the Wine Palate in the Solarium (old Scottish Rite Hospital) was open.
There are no reports or photos of the event at either the Festival site or the Oakhurst Neighborhood site as of this posting, but there might be later.
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This page at the official Festival site explains which groups/causes benefit from this event. There's also a Sponsors page.
During the early years of the Festival, it was held near the old Depot in downtown Decatur. But, with that now being the DePeaux restaurant, the Festival will probably stay in Oakhurst for the foreseeable future.
On the upside:
There's a night and day difference between this intersection now and what it was back in the mid to late sixties, when this writer owned a Duplex a half block away on Fayetteville Rd. This was not an entertainment center at that time, and the surrounding neighborhoods were headed downhill, if anything.
On the down side:
The Oakhurst Bar and Grill was shut down as the result of a power
outage, as it transfers to new ownership. The Matador Mexican Cantina was also closed, with a sign saying it lost power as a result of
the Oakhurst Bar and Grill outage. Since this two fronted right into the fenced in area, a great opportunity was lost. (Fresche may have been open.)
The old grocery store building just down East Lake west of Harmony Park is the most depressing area in the Oakhurst Business District, although the large parking lot comes in handy. Mulligan's appears to have been shut down for some time.
Here's a less stylized map with the fenced in area shown (roughly) by the red lines:
