The Milan Melon Festival takes place over Labor Day Festival as the city crams all sorts of rides, food booths and vendors in Milan Square. There is plenty of live entertainment and contests galore. Be sure to get the Muskmelon Ice Cream and Watermelon Sherbet, made specially each year by Toft’s Ice Cream.
2023 DATE: September 1-4, 2023
Location: Milan Square
41 Front St
Milan, OH 44846
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/milanmelonfest/home
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This post documents my experience on August 30, 2014.
Author’s Note: Way back in 2009, I wrote my first official festival experience/review for my blog and it turned out to be about the Milan Melon Festival (you can read that here – https://ohiofestivals.net/the-milan-melon-festival).
This year, I decided to return, take more pictures and search for any changes. I hope you like it.
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After 5 years,I decided to return to the town of Edison’s birth…
…and see how the Milan Melon Festival was doing.
As remembered, the festival was mostly contained in the Milan Village Square…
…and it really utilized the park’s space for rides…
…games…
…a stage area for entertainment…
…and competitions (Big Wheel Race)…
…and a market across the street…
…where there were shirts, crafts…
…and promises of more crafts.
Oh…and there was food.
Tons of food…
…offering cabbage and noodles, pierogi, bratwurst…
…pizza, perch…
…pastries and more (Kiedrowski’s)!
But even with the vast selection of food available, there seemed to be a limited amount of melon-esque products…
…made up of watermelon slices (Milan Friends Church)…
…watermelon syrup…
…and entire watermelons and melons.
Fortunately, after our Oh Boy cheeseburger and Berardi fry lunch…
…(something Max highly appreciated)…
…the festival did highlight a rather special melon dessert at Toft’s counter…
…consisting of watermelon sherbert and cantaloupe (or muskmelon) ice cream.
In fact, it was so good that…
…once a friend discovered that Toft’s also sold cantaloupe halves filled with cantaloupe ice cream…
…and she was kind enough to buy us one (as well as take this pic – thanks Laura!)…
…we couldn’t help but eat that as well.