Deep-Fried Fame: The Contest That Decides What America Lines Up For

Every fall the State Fair of Texas turns Fair Park in Dallas into what Fox Business calls America's test kitchen for deep-fried imagination: fried cheesecake, bacon-wrapped creations and gravity-defying desserts, all competing for a fairgoer's attention.

A contest judged before the gates open

The Big Tex Choice Awards are handed out before the fair opens, and the 2026 edition ran September 25 to October 18 — a 24-day, 140th-anniversary run themed "Stars, Stripes, and Howdies," per Dallasites101.

77 recipes, four titles

According to Fox Business, 77 entries chased four titles this year. On Demand DFW reports this was the 22nd edition: the 77 entries were narrowed to 15 finalists, judged August 18 by roughly 30 judges on taste, value, fairgoer appeal and creativity. Vendors must have been State Fair concessionaires for at least two years to enter.

Seven versions of a peach float

Josie Nevins Mays spent roughly three months and cycled through about seven recipes before landing on Nevin's Soft Serve Peach Bellini Float, a boozy peach soft serve finished with sparkling wine. The hard part, she told Fox News Digital, was getting the alcohol-infused mixture to freeze while staying creamy: "I wanted a true creamy ice cream soft serve."

Ten tries for a spicy margarita

Dwaina Morris started experimenting during last year's fair and needed about 10 attempts to finalize the Sunset Soft Serve Rita, a strawberry-and-mango margarita layered with vanilla soft serve and finished with Tajín, chamoy and a hot honey Tajín topping. Making the finals pays before any trophy: finalists appear in materials handed to fairgoers. "It draws people to your booth because they want to see what it tastes like," she told Fox News Digital. She already had next year's item before this fair opened.

Ten straight finals, used as advertising

Isaac Rousso has reached the finals 10 years running and won four times, most recently in 2024 for Cotton Candy Bacon on a Stick. His 2026 entry, Rousso's Bacon Jam Caramel Apple Hard Cider, is less a trophy hunt than marketing: "For us, it's just having the opportunity to talk to you, building our brand with the public," he told Fox News Digital. His company runs 13 stands on the grounds.

The fair's rule: have a plan

Melanie Linnear, senior vice president of concessions for the State Fair of Texas, told Fox News Digital: "This is not something you can just jump in last minute. You have to have a plan." Speed matters more than ever — "the longer you take, that's money on the table" — and organizers now push entrants to build affordability into recipes during development.

Costs up, crowds down

Food costs at the fair have climbed 30% to 40% since the COVID-19 pandemic, Linnear said. Attendance fell too: about 2,020,064 people came in 2025, down from 2,385,855 in 2024 — a drop of more than 365,000 and the lowest turnout in eight years, with high prices among the factors Dallas Morning News and others cited. This year the fair capped adult admission at $27 online and $25 at the gate, cut parking by $5 to $25, added a $10 kids' ticket and an after-5 p.m. ticket, and, per Spectrum News, priced more than 200 food and drink options at $10 or less.

The winners are already on the signs

The August 18 winners now guide the lines: Tom Grace's Burger Chop Tater Tacos took Best Taste, Savory; Beck Fletcher's Chocolate Corny Dog took Best Taste, Sweet; Fruteria Cano's Tropical Coco Fresca took Best Taste, Sipper; and Stephen El Gidi's Berry Me in Matcha — a roughly $15 matcha cheesecake on a stick — took Most Creative. PaperCity notes El Gidi is a former two-time Olympic swimmer who also won Best Taste, Sweet in 2023.

What the vendors actually gain

Fox News reports Fletcher's sells roughly 550,000 corny dogs during the 24-day run, using about 60,000 pounds of hot dogs, 1,500 gallons of mustard and 800 gallons of ketchup. The fair is a nonprofit and, per WFAA figures cited by Hoodline, generates more than $600 million in economic impact for Dallas-Fort Worth, with proceeds funding scholarships and community grants. Organizers told the Dallas Morning News they hoped to return to 2.3 million to 2.5 million visitors this year.

Next year's recipe is ready

Morris already has her next entry picked out. The economics, though, keep tightening: ABC11 reports the North Carolina State Fair added a 15% fee on overall vendor revenue this year, prompting at least one longtime vendor to skip the fair, while the Georgia National Fair put 23 new dishes into its Fair Food Fight. Four titles remain the cheapest advertising in the business.