Clawson Fest returns for fifth year

CLAWSON — Clawson Fest, the annual end-of-summer celebration of downtown Clawson, will be back for its fifth year from noon to 8 p.m. Aug. 23.

The festival showcases all things Clawson, including plenty of local favorites in the culinary, art and music worlds. 

Along Main Street there will be a variety of culinary options including local restaurants that will have special treats for festival attendees.

Charlie Sampson, of Whiskey Taco Foxtrot, will be serving up some unique burger tacos including the classic smash burger taco, spicy barbecue smash burger taco, and the California burger taco. 

Sampson said they are also going to have three of their most popular fish tacos, and a margarita bar outside of the restaurant. 

Sampson said that his business opened in March of 2020, right before the COVID-19 shutdown, and that when Clawson Fest came about, he helped coordinate the festival. 

“It started out basically about five years ago. It was two guys that I didn’t actually know at the time. They were like, ‘Hey, can you do some food for us? We want to do this concert in the parking lot,’ which is right across from my restaurant,” he said. “The next year, we had more vendors come out, and more people participate, and we got a lot bigger, and it was really cool. Then following that, we took over basically the entire downtown.”

Clawson Fest, according to Sampson, is a great way to kick off the end of summer and come together as a community to enjoy the local Clawson cuisine and vendors. 

“It (Clawson Fest) always opens it up to a lot of the Clawson residents to come down, hang out and have a little bit of a party,” he said. “It’s kind of the last hurrah of summer, a good cap to summer vacation. We have a ton of fun with it and get to have some fun with the products we put out; we get to experiment every year, do something different and fun.”

Sean Nasrey, Clawson Fest producer, said that this year will have some top-of-the-line musical talents, the Detroit Circus and a charity hot dog eating contest. 

The hot dog eating contest will be raising money for AV24 — The Alex Verner Foundation, dedicated to the legacy of Alex Verner, who died in the shooting on the Michigan State University campus on Feb. 13, 2023. 

“We also have an epic kids zone this year with lots of stuff, like a huge dragon that took one of our vendors 20 years to make,” he said. “The dragon goes by the name of Kazdra, queen of the fire dragons, it is filled with over 2,000 LEDS, six computers, 10 motors, and 4,000 lines of coding. When he was telling me all of that, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s some dedication.’ Definitely a labor of love.”

Nasrey said that the festival has more sponsors this year; as a result, it has more high-quality vendors. 

“Our vendors are top-notch this year. We hand select them to make sure that we have quality and are not oversaturating at any certain area,” he said. “We are very excited about that.”

Nasrey said that with more sponsors, Clawson Fest is able to take those leftover funds and donate to local charities. 

“We were able to give back to the community a lot last year after Clawson Fest. We were able to give back to around 20 charities, so we are very excited about that with some of the leftover funds,” he said. “So, this year we will hopefully get to give back a little bit more than that and to some more charities.”

Nasrey started the Clawson Fest event in 2020 with his friend and bandmate Sean Dunlop, who will be debuting their new band, The Capri Suns, during Clawson Fest. 

Clawson Fest is always a testament to the community of Clawson. As a newer restaurant in Clawson, Sampson said that each year Clawson Fest shows him the camaraderie that Clawson harbors. 

“It’s a town that supports itself and carries itself. As much as we may have our little difficulties here and there as a town, you see Clawson Fest and you see people come out and bring their wares and show off their goods, and you can see the town really come together and really just support what they like,” Sampson said.

Clawson Fest has free admission. For more information, visit clawsonfest.com.