Grilled-food festival lures hungry crowd

Part of the Dot’s Ace Hardware parking lot on Richmond Road served as the landing strip for grilled food enthusiasts Saturday.

This year, about 25 grillfood specialists crowded into the lot to offer the public both breakfast and lunch grilled fixings as a way of just celebrating the art of grilling in general during the hardware store’s first Grill Fest.

From about 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., the grillers offered everything from grilled fish and hamburgers to pancakes and bacon as the public poured in for the samplings.

One of the veteran grillers, Nicholas Liu of Bentonville, Ark., offered pork tacos as grilled cuisine during the sixhour-plus festival.

“Grilling is just something I grew up doing,” he said. “Throughout the years, I’ve tested different food to grill because it’s always been the type of food I love to eat.”

Mark Van Herpen, with Twisted Fork Grill and Lounge, said it is the first year the eatery has participated.

“We had to get into this because it’s a fabulous event for the whole community,” he said. “It brings grillers together as one people.”

For Texarkana College Culinary Art program students,

“Grilling is just something I grew up doing.”

— Nicholas Liu of Bentonville, Ark.

the event also offered them their first outing with outdoor grilling.

“This gives the students some great, practical, handson experience in the culinary arts,” said Sheila Lynn, the college’s culinary arts coordinator.

Staff photo by Greg Bischof ■ Texarkana, Texas-based Twisted Fork Grill and Lounge personnel participated Saturday in Dot’s Ace Hardware’s first Grill Festival on Richmond Road. The festival, which was called the Egg Grill Festival for the last three years, has now become just the Grill Festival.