The scent of apple cider donuts and the sounds of live music filled the Commons this weekend as thousands gathered for Ithaca’s 43rd Annual Apple Harvest Festival, even as an outbreak of fire briefly disrupted the festival.
Commonly called “Applefest,” the festival is organized by the Downtown Ithaca Alliance and features local farmers, artisans, live performers and plenty of apples, celebrating New York’s status as the country’s second-largest apple producer. This year it spanned from State Street to Albany Street, filling also the stretch between Seneca Street and Green Street.
The celebration was jolted Saturday afternoon when a fire broke out at a food stand offering funnel cakes and fried oreos on the corner of State and Geneva Street.
The fire started around 2:40 p.m. when it appeared that the oil from the grill ignited, spreading throughout and burning the top of the tent.
The employees of the food stand declined to comment on the circumstances behind the fire and the booth’s name. The offerings of the food stand include pumpkin funnel cakes, apple cider funnel cakes, fried Oreos and lemonade.
Ann Reichlin, who was tabling for the Tompkins Democratic Committee with Indivisible Tompkins just adjacent to the funnel cake stand when the fire broke out, said that when firefighters got to the scene, they cleared the street, pausing the festival for about 45 minutes.
Reichlin said she was thankful that the City's safety protocols prevented the fire from spreading.
Attendees line up for caramel apples for sale at one of the many vendors present during the annual Apple Harvest Festival in downtown Ithaca.
The City’s event application instructions state that any food vendors that use “solid, liquid or gas-fired cooking/heating appliances” are required to have a permit issued by the Ithaca Fire Department and directs event organizers to the IFD for “advice on vendor placement in relation to the use of tents/canopies and cooking appliances, and maintaining fire lanes.”
When asked by The Sun about details of the accident, firefighters at the booth on Geneva Street declined to comment, deferring to a future press release.
By Sunday morning, Reichlin noted that the food stand returned with a new tent after their old one caught fire, but did not fry any more Oreos.
Despite the brief halt to the festivities, the rest of the weekend proceeded as scheduled.
Tori Cotton ’26, who was attending Applefest for the fourth consecutive year, said she was looking forward to checking out a booth with Ithaca-design t-shirts.
“There's one booth that has these printed t-shirts that are $5 each, so it's really good, and they're really cute,” Cotton said. “They have specific Ithaca designs, so there’s like a Buttermilk Falls one, so specifically that booth I want to check out.”
Another attendee, Malcolm Mauro, an Ithaca College alumna, said he is “very happy” to be back at Applefest.
“I graduated in 2022, so I haven't been to Applefest in three years, and it's just as great as I remember, but it's much bigger than I remember,” Mauro said.
Behind the scenes of the apple-filled stands and bustling customers, local farms described the challenges of getting there.
Abbie Teeter, the owner of the A.J. Teeter Farm, who has been a vendor at Applefest for over 20 years, explained that a late spring frost that kills the flowers on apple trees results in a poor apple crop the following year. Teeter said the late frost impacted apple harvest this year, following an exceptionally weak apple harvest in 2023.
“We press our own cider with apples on our farm, and we didn't have enough, so we had to go to our neighbors and get some apples from them to have enough for this event,” Teeter said.
Amara Steinkraus, the owner of Littletree Orchards, which has been a staple at Applefest since its founding, expressed a similar sentiment, citing changing climate as one of the “biggest challenges” for apple growers.
“In general, probably one of the big things that's facing apple growers in this area is that spring tends to break earlier and tend to be more unpredictable, which is really challenging for a perennial crop like apples,” Steinkraus said.
However for Robert Grannis, the owner of Robbies Produce and a 15 year Applefest vendor, because of the location of his farm near Lake Ontario, his harvest was not as affected by the cold spring and late frost.
“Down here [near Ithaca], the spring affected the farmers more. My apples come from Lake Ontario, and the lake gives us a lot of protection, so we did okay,” Grannis said.
Even with the difficulties in the apple harvest this year, the festival continued to draw crowds and stands as a staple celebration in Ithaca and across upstate New York.
Teeter said the extended hours on Friday brought in more attendees and customers compared to last year, when the festival ran from noon to 6 p.m.
“Normally, [Applefest] sort of dies down by five, six o'clock on Friday, but there was actually an uptick, and then it was pretty busy [Friday] night between six and eight.”
For Steinkraus and her orchard, Applefest is a crucial marker in the year when harvest is at its peak.
“The busyness of harvest leads up to [Applefest], so it's always kind of this pinnacle of full harvest time,” Steinkraus explained. And also, obviously, it’s really financially impactful for a lot of the small businesses and small farms that come here.”
Teeter explained the significance of Applefest for her, highlighting the sense of community that Applefest brings.
“There are vendors here, [who] have watched me grow up with their kids, and they're still here, and we're still here, and we have relationships with the vendors all around us,” Teeter said. “And so it's nice to get to see them once a year and be able to support each other.”
As Mauro described it, Applefest is a time to enjoy the “culture of Ithaca.”
“[Ithaca] is not just a college town — it has farms on the outside, and everyone's bringing in the agriculture, or the restaurants are setting up their shops, and people are getting food together,” Mauro said. “ It's just a really nice way to come together and just celebrate being here.”
Taehee Oh is a member of the Class of 2026 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a senior writer for the News department and can be reached at toh@cornellsun.com.
