Traverse City National Cherry Festival: Pie Eating & Pit Spitting Contests, Amazing Cherries & More

I almost won my first pie eating contest this summer!

When planning out last year where we wanted visit in 2023, we decided to head to Michigan in the summer so that we could get to Traverse City in time for the 2023 National Cherry Festival.

The Cherry Festival is a free-to-attend 8 day event running from Saturday to Saturday at the beginning of July each year and, as the name suggests, is a celebration of all things cherry.

We booked a 10 night stay at the Tru by Hilton Traverse City (see my review here) so that we’d be in town for the entire festival, but we hadn’t planned to attend each day. Before arriving we weren’t sure which days we’d visit the festival, but in the end we decided to go with visiting on the first Saturday and then again on the Friday later in the week.

Visiting on the first Saturday and/or Sunday is worth it as that’s when the festival seems to be at its busiest with all kinds of events going on. This year (and possibly other years) that included a two hour air show which seemed to be a key draw considering how many people headed out as soon as that had finished. Be aware that the air show is incredibly loud due to the fighter jets that are part of it. Before setting off on our 7 year, 50 state road trip, we lived in Portsmouth, VA. That’s near Virginia Beach where the Oceana Naval Air Station is based and so we’re used the deafening sound of fighter jets overhead, but their loudness could come as a surprise to people not used to that – especially those particularly sensitive to loud noises.

At that point we were checking out Taproot Cider House a block or two from the action but still got to see some of the planes flying overhead. They were moving so fast though that by the time we’d unlocked our phones to take a photo, they were gone!

That first Saturday we visited the festival we didn’t do too much because we’d brought our dog Truffles downtown. Officially, dogs aren’t allowed in the Cherry Festival area. Having said that, we did see a few dogs around both days we visited and no one seemed to mind provided they were behaving themselves.

The day we brought Truffles along we stayed to the edge of the festival, taking a wander along the trail running between the event and the beach. The beach is on the West Arm of Grand Traverse Bay which is part of Lake Michigan. With it being a beautiful day, the beach was popular, as was the lake itself.

We did stop to get a small tub of cherries though which were some of the most perfectly ripe and delicious cherries I’ve ever eaten.

We kept things low key that first day seeing as we had Truffles with us. When we returned on the Friday, we knew we wanted to get the full experience and so we left her at the hotel. That was the day after we’d visited Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, so I think she was happy to have a rest day!

Our first stop was the Cherry Blast Stage. They were running a cherry pie eating contest which was free to enter for anyone who wanted to be involved. Shae and I both thought it’d be fun, so we both signed up, then wandered around exploring while we waited for the contest to start about half an hour later.

As you might expect, there was all kinds of stuff with cherry designs for sale.

There was another vendor with something like 20 different dips for sale, all of which you could try with pretzel sticks. There were some fascinating flavors, with one of my favorites appropriately being the cherry BBQ.

Dozens of people ended up enrolling in that day’s cherry pie eating contest, so there were numerous rounds with six participants in each one.

Only the winner of each qualifying round makes it through to the final. Shae and I were both part of the third round, so we were competing against each other as well as four other people.

The contest didn’t end up being as hard as we initially anticipated. We’d originally thought that we’d have to eat an entire cherry pie, but it turned out to be a cherry pie slice eating contest.

While eating a slice rather than an entire pie would be easier, they were still decent-sized slices of pie. There are also a few rules to the cherry pie slice eating contest. You can’t use your hands at all while eating, plus you have to remain seated the entire time.

However, you are allowed to manipulate the slice before the contest starts. I decided to stand it on one side to make it easier to take an initial big gulp, while other people broke it up into bite-sized pieces.

We soon heard the all-important words:

On your marks, get set….go!

At “Get set”, I had my mouth over the corner of my slice ready to take a big bite as soon as I heard her say “Go!”.

I found the contest far more tense than I was expecting! You’re focused on eating your pie as quickly as possible, but it’s not like a normal race where you can see other contenders to see how far along they are and pick up your speed. You’re just face down in your own slice trying to bite, chew and swallow as quickly as possible, with no idea if you’re faster or slower than others.

So, how did Shae and I do in our round? Here’s the video:

I won!

That wasn’t the end of it though. As I mentioned earlier, this was a qualifying round, with the fastest eater from each round going into the final. There were seven rounds in total, so once all those qualifying rounds were over the seven of us who’d won our rounds sat back down at the table for a second slice.

The photo above was me just posing for a photo before it started. The final started about 30 seconds later, but about 10 seconds before we got going disaster struck!

I’d turned my slice on end again so that I could access as much of it as possible with my first bite. Unfortunately the structural integrity of my slice wasn’t great and it tipped over. I tried to quickly turn it on its side again before the ‘No hands’ rule came into force, but it tipped over again.

Ultimately, I don’t think that affected the end result as I was up against some tough competitors. The guy sitting next to me was a beast – check out how fast he worked on his pie.

As you can see, I definitely didn’t win the final! There ended up being some confusion as to who won though. The woman on the left end of the table initially appeared to win it, but she was adjudged to have used her hands when wiping her face to make sure she finished off the pie.

What the organizers weren’t sure about was who had been second. There were three people they decided had finished at about the same time and who would go forward into a final round of three. I had my fingers crossed that I was one of them.

Alas not.

I think I ended up placing fourth in the final, so I missed out on that decider. We stuck around to see who won and the winner seemed inevitable:

Yep, the guy who’d been sitting next to me in the original final round cleared his plate in no time at all to take the crown as the winner.

Despite neither Shae nor I winning the contest, all of us contestants got a certificate to take home with us.

That wasn’t the only contest we took part in that day. Shortly after the cherry pie eating contest finished, there was a cherry pit spitting contest. We quickly made our way over there, where each contestant was handed three cherries. We ate the cherries while standing in line, saving the pits ready for the contest.

There were a couple of key rules for the pit spitting contest. The first is that you have to stand with both feet on the line when spitting your cherry pits – you can’t take a run up to gain momentum. The second is that your pit has to finish on the mat to count. The distance it rolls on the mat counts and if it lands off the mat and then rolls on to it, it still counts. It’s only if it comes to rest off the mat that it’s not eligible. This is harder than it sounds. The Pit Spit Mat is probably no more than four feet wide which isn’t much leeway.

Shae went first of the two of us. The festival’s pit spit record for women was set in 2014 when someone made it to 52′ 9″ – an incredibly impressive distance. The top result in 2023’s festival occurred on the first day of the festival when a woman spat it 43′ 2″.

Shae was sadly no match for that. Her first attempt landed at 16′ 2″, then her second spit landed out of bounds. Her third attempt was her most successful at 21′ 3″. That put her in second place, then she was bumped down to third by another contestant. She was in third place for the longest time before one of the final contestants spat a pit further than her, so she ended up out of the top three.

Next up it was my turn. The men’s all-time record at the Cherry Festival is a whopping 80′ 10″, while the record up to that point at the 2023 event was 56′ 1″. I wasn’t at all optimistic about my ability to reach those kind of distances and sure enough, my pit spitting skills weren’t sufficient to rival those illustrious distances.

Still, at least I beat Shae!

My first attempt reached 22′ 11″. I thought that my second attempt wasn’t going to count as it rolled off the mat, but it quickly rolled back on and finished at the 28′ 8″ mark which put me in second place. I initially felt good about my third pit spit as it left my mouth, but then I almost tipped over when leaning forward to give it some extra distance. I just about kept my balance, but the pit ended up out of bounds, so I had to make do with that 28′ 8″ distance.

I remained in second place for a little while, then was pushed down to third. However, much like Shae on the women’s side of the contest, soon before the end of the contest I was pushed out of the top three on the men’s side.

Despite eating the slice(s) of cherry pie for the eating contest and a few cherries for the pit spitting contest, we weren’t quite done with our cherry eating for the day. We got another cup of them to share and they were just as ripe and delicious as the ones we’d had the previous Saturday.

We then headed across the street to where a fairground was set up during the festival. I like rollercoasters and don’t mind fast and steep drops, but my stomach can’t handle rides that spin around in circles fast – even children’s rides like teacups.

Shae on the other hand hates rollercoasters, but does like any rides that spin fast. She therefore went on one of the circular ones that spin round very fast and which hold you in place through the force of that.

There weren’t any rides I was particularly interested in for myself, so we both went on the Ferris wheel instead.

Thankfully it wasn’t until a few days later that I randomly came across this video of a ride malfunctioning at the festival a couple of years beforehand, otherwise I wouldn’t have even gotten in their Ferris wheel!

Our final action of the National Cherry Festival was one of the quintessential parts of events like this – fairground food! There were all your staples – corn dogs, funnel cake, etc. I ended up getting a turkey leg, while Shae got a BBQ brisket sandwich.

Final Thoughts

We had a fun time at the 2023 National Cherry Festival in Traverse City, MI. It gave me a new appreciation for cherries, plus it was fun taking part in the cherry pie and pit spitting contests, even if we didn’t win!