The PNE Fair at the Pacific National Exhibition is back, and so is all the delicious food, from gourmet hot dogs to fancy ice creams and exotic ethnic treats!
The same as every year, on the menu in 2024 there are mini donuts, deep-fried desserts, foot-long hot dogs and other tasty items. Some of the new food truck-style cuisine we’ve tried this year includes Japanese-Hawaiian fusion sandwiches, deep-fried squid on a stick, Japanese mochi-infused French Toast, chicken chow mein pizza, and sour candy-flavoured ice cream.
In 2024 the PNE Fair runs from August 17th until September 2nd.
To learn about the PNE in general, see our article about the PNE Fair or visit the attraction’s official website at pne.ca. To learn about this year’s food vendors, see below or visit pne.ca/fair-food.
Food Vendors at the PNE in 2024
The Pacific National Exhibition at the end of the summer wouldn’t be the PNE Fair without its food vendors. Similar to last year, in 2024 there are over 50 food stalls on site!
Some of the Fair’s traditional favourites you can expect to see include the Super Foot Long Hot Dogs, the Little Donut Bakery, Jimmy’s Lunch, Corn Dog King and Hunky Bills Perogies. Other regulars you’ll see are Twisted Potato and Taco Nori, Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck, Summerland Soft Serve, and many more.
For tickets and full details about the PNE Fair, see the PNE.ca website.
2024 Foods We’ve Tested and Can Recommend
Just a few of the treats we’ve tried from PNE food vendors this year include the following:
- The iconic “Jimmy’s Burger” with onions and fries from Jimmy’s Lunch (which celebrates its 95th year at the PNE this year). We also got to try their poutine. Everything was very tasty. The fries in particular we found exceptional. We’re told they were harvested from a farm in the Fraser Valley just a few days before. You could taste the freshness, and the flavor of the particular type of potato!
- A Japanese-Hawaiian Meat Skewer Signature Hero Sandwich from Kyu Grill. It was delicious with the pineapple, and the bun tasted very fresh. We’ll definitely want to try this again.
- Arguably one of the most visually-interesting foods at the PNE this year is the Giant Squid on a Stick from Happy Fish. It’s huge, deep-fried, chewy and delicious! Eating it also makes for fun photo opportunities.
- If you like both Italian foods and Chinese, there is Chicken Chow Mein Pizza at Cheeky Pizza which is a food stall owned and operated by the PNE (where most of the other vendors are independent). The Chicken Chow Mein Pizza was definitely different and not something you’ll find every day!
The above are just a small number of the many tasty, savory and exotic food truck and festival-style foods you’ll find at the PNE Fair in 2024. There are so many more to try! For a list of desserts we sampled this year, continue reading. To learn about all 50+ food vendors in 2024, visit the Food Vendor page on the pne.ca website.
Desserts We’ve Tried in 2024
- The Ube Coconut Mini Donuts from the Little Donut Bakery are made from purple yams and come with a chocolate sauce and coconut sprinkles. The Little Donut Bakery also has corn bread donuts (which we didn’t try, but might another day), plus other varieties. This place’s donut-making machines are fun to watch, and some of them are still the originals from the 1940s!
- Tochi Desserts, interestingly, is owned by a group of recent UBC grads. Their Hong Kong-style of French Toast is infused with Japanese mochi which is a tasty, slightly chewy filling that’s made from rice and comes in various flavours. A scoop of ice cream also comes with the dessert.
- Another unique, interesting and surprisingly delicious treat at the PNE this year are the Takis Mini Donuts from the Mini Donut Factory. Takis is a Mexican brand of corn tortilla chips which makes the donuts both sweet and spicy.
- Summerland Soft Serve is a great place to get soft ice cream. Every year they have a different special flavour. A few years ago we tried their Smoking Charcoal Ice Cream. This year they have Sour Candy Soft Serve which is blue and comes with a few sour candies on top.
For the full list of participating food vendors in 2024, see the pne.ca website.
To see some highlights of this year’s lineup of food vendors, check out the video below. You’ll see us eating poutine, French toast, pizza and other dishes from food trucks mentioned above.
Further below in this article you’ll find videos of featured foods from past PNE years. As you’ll see in one of the videos, in 2018 they were selling cricket-covered caramel apples! There are lots of exotic food items in 2024, but nothing with crickets (or at least not that we noticed).
For tickets and full details about the PNE Fair, see the PNE.ca website.
Other Food Trucks in 2024
The full list of food trucks at the PNE Fair in 2024 includes Aloha Poke, Big Red’s Poutine, Cannoli King, Cheeky Italian, Cheese Please, Chicky’s Chicken, Corn Dog King, Currey in a Hut, Diggity Dog, Dim Sum Express, Dos Amigos, Happy Fish, Henry’s Outdoor Chicken BBQ, Hunky Bills, International Perogies, Jamaican Mi Juicy, and Japanese Teriyaki Express.
Other food vendors at the fair this year are Little Coco’s, Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck, Morgan’s Harbour, Mr Pretzel, Poutinerie, Prairie Smoke & Spice, REEL Mac & Cheese, Roasted Revolution, Saltspring Noodle Bar, Shawarma Time, Taco Nori, Tacosaurus, Truckin BBQ, and Urban Wood Fired Pizza.
Potato chip, dessert and drink vendors at the PNE Fair this year also include Cheyenne Coffee, Cin City Donuts, Funnel Cakes, Fusion Icy, Lemon Heaven Lemonade, Lickity Drippity, Praguery Ice Cream, Rocky Point Ice Cream, Summerland Soft Serve, Tornado Potato, Twisted Potato Express, West Family Fudge, and Wiggle Chips.
PNE Food Vendors from Past Years
Each year the PNE offers members of the media a tour of the Fair’s food vendor lineup. Below shows scenes of what we tried in 2023. What you’ll see includes a Coaster Dog hot dog from Diggity Dog (to commemorate the Wooden Roller Coaster’s 65th anniversary) and a meat and cheese sandwich from Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck (where the beef was slow roasted birria-style). Yum!
Also in the following video, you’ll see us enjoying a salmon taco from Taco Nori (where instead of a hard corn tortilla it came in a deep-fried nori seaweed shell) and an ice cream and cotton candy dessert from Lickity Drippity (which was probably one of the PNE’s #1 top hits for kids that year).
(The music in the following food video from 2023 is by LiteSaturation from Pixabay.)
PNE Foods from 2020
In 2020, because of COVID, the PNE Fair operated in a drive-through format where people had to stay in their cars and see things from their vehicles. The PNE still had its annual food tour for the media, however, and we got to try Godzilla Macaroni from Reel Mac & Cheese, corn dog samples from the Corn Dog King and perogies from Hunky Bill’s.
We also got to try some delicious noodles from Salt Spring Noodle Bar, a gourmet hot dog from Foot Long Hot Dogs, a deep-fried Kit Kat, and a donut chicken burger from Steve O’s. There was also poutine, twisted potatoes, mini donuts, and pineapple whip ice cream from Summerland Soft Serve.
Check out the following video from 2020. As you’ll see, even though the festival happened on a smaller scale than usual, there was still a wide selection of tasty offerings that year.
PNE Foods from 2018
In 2018 we headed to the PNE Fair early in the morning, before the place opened to the public, and sampled some of the latest and craziest food items at the fair. Below is a video about the media food tour we got to go on that year. Speaking in the video is Laura Balance, a spokesperson for the PNE.
Below is a video of Brian Jones from the B&B Diner describing his milkshake burgers to members of the media during a food tour at the PNE in 2018. Among other toppings, the burger included a scoop of garlic-flavoured ice cream. It was, surprisingly, very good!
There are always new exotic foods at the PNE and 2018 was no exception. Next Gen Concessions offered something sweet, sustainable, sticky and with a crunch! It was their cricket caramel apple that everyone was talking about!
The following video features a talk about the PNE’s cricket caramel apples during a presentation to media in August of 2018.
Other Information
For full details about the Fair, see the official Pacific National Exhibition website.
For more information about the PNE, see our article about the Pacific National Exhibition.
To learn more about the Pacific National Exhibition, check out the following articles:
Other articles that might be of interest include the following:
- Vancouver’s August Calendar of Events
- Vancouver’s September Calendar of Events
- Labour Day Long Weekend in Vancouver
- Lower Mainland Activities for Children
