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 2026 there are mini donuts, deep-fried desserts, foot-long hot dogs and other tasty items. Unique bites this year include Wing Addiction’s maple bacon wing waffle stack, Big Cocos’ cookies and cream Korean dog, Japanese Teriyaki Express’ cheesy fish taco, and The Little Donut Bakery’s BC cherry Black Forest donuts.
In 2026 the PNE Fair runs from August 22nd until the Monday of the Labour Day Weekend, which is September 7th.
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
The Pacific National Exhibition at the end of the summer wouldn’t be the PNE Fair without its food vendors. Similar to recent years, in 2026 there are over 50 food stalls on site!
Some of the Fair’s traditional favourites you can expect to see include the Super Footlong Hot Dogs, the Little Donut Bakery, Jimmy’s Lunch, Corndog King and Hunky Bills Perogies. Other regulars you’ll see are Twisted Potato and Taco Nori, Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck, Summerland Soft Serve, the Blooming Onion, Funnel Cakes and many more.
For tickets and full details about the PNE Fair, see the PNE.ca website.
Foods at the Fair in 2026
Every year the PNE introduces fun and unusual foods, and 2026 is no exception. Alongside returning food vendors and menu items, this year’s Fair features new dishes with different flavours and international twists. Below are some of the highlighted offerings.
- Brownie Cake Donuts (The Little Donut Bakery): an exclusive BC cherry Black Forest donut item. This place’s donut-making machines are fun to watch, and some of them are still the originals from the 1940s!
- Spamalot (REEL Mac & Cheese): a grilled box of gourmet macaroni and cheese with spam, mustard and parmesan.
- Maple Bacon Wing Waffle Stack (Wing Addiction): a very Canadian spin on a classic chicken and waffles.
- Cookies N Cream Korean Dog (Big Cocos): a combination of hot dog, cheese and chocolatey cookie flavour. Big Cocos also offer the Cinna-Dog (a deep-fried corndog with Cinnamon Toast Crunch powder) and the Twista-Roni (a skewer of pepperoni and mozzarella covered in garlic butter).
- Hot Honey Chicken Tacos (Bomb Nachos): Nashville Hot chicken on top of tortilla chips and melted cheese.
- Meltdown Grilled Cheese & Poutine (Tin Lizzy Concessions): this very unique grilled cheese sandwich includes a healthy helping of roasted crickets!
- Truffle Twisted Potato (Twisted Potato): a classic twisted potato on a stick with truffle sauce and cheese sauce.
- Triple Cheese Parmesan Poutine (Rotato Potato): this poutine not only has cheese curds but also warm cheese sauce and plenty of shaved parmesan.
- Cheesy Fish Taco (Japanese Teriyaki Express): a fusion taco with fish, melted cheese and veggies.
Indigenous Foods
In 2026, in the Canoe Cultures area at the PNE Fair, there are Indigenous vendors. That’s where you’ll find Salmon & Bannock and Coast to Coast Traditional Foods. Some of the tasty menu items we’ve tried there include charcuterie board items (which come in a cup), buffalo sausage, bannock, lemonade, and handcrafted freezies. Other available foods include bison jerky, Indigenous-made coffee, chocolates, artisan jams and more.
Other Foods We’ve Tested and Can Recommend
Just a few of the treats we’ve tried from PNE food vendors in the past who are back at the fair this year include the following:
- The iconic “Jimmy’s Burger” with onions and fries from Jimmy’s Lunch. We also got to try their poutine. Everything is very tasty. The fries in particular are exceptional. We’re told the potatoes were harvested from a farm in the Fraser Valley just a few days before. You can taste the freshness, and the flavor of the particular type of spud!
- 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.
- Summerland Soft Serve is a great place to get soft ice cream. Every year they have a different special flavour.
For the full list of participating food vendors in 2026, see the pne.ca website.
To see some highlights of 2024’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! You can get a cricket and grilled cheese sandwich in 2026!
For tickets and full details about the PNE Fair, see the PNE.ca website.
Other Food Trucks in 2026
The full list of food vendors at the PNE Fair in 2026 includes Authentico Pizza & Co, Bomb Nachos, Tin Lizzy Concessions, Truckin’ BBQ, Wing Addiction, Big Cocos, Canadian Kettle Corn Extreme, Gary’s Kettle Corn, Mr. Pretzel, Roasted Revolution, Rotato Potato, Smoothie Shoppe, Tornado Potato, Twisted Potato Express and Wiggle Chips.
Other food vendors at the fair this year are Aloha Poke, Cheeky Italian, Corndog King, Curry in a Hurry, Dim Sum Express, Dos Amigos, Diggity Dog, Gator BBQ, Hot n’ Crispy, Hunky Bills, International Perogies, Jamaican Mi Juicy, Japanese Teriyaki Express, Jimmy’s Lunch, Mahshiko, Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck, REEL Mac & Cheese, Salt Spring Noodle Bar, Shrimp Boat, Smoked Turkey Legs & West Coast Spuds, Street Dogs, Super Footlong Hot Dogs, Taco Nori, The Mad Greek, Unroutine Poutine and Urban Wood Fried Pizza.
Dessert and drink vendors at the PNE Fair this year also include Bao Buns, Cin City Donuts, Funnel Cakes, Rocky Point Ice Cream, Rolled West Coach, Slush Zone, Summerland Soft Serve, The Little Donut Bakery, Tochi, Waffle Wagon and West Family Fudge.
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:
- Vancouver’s Playland
- Fright Nights at the PNE
- Events at the PNE
- PNE Prize Home Lottery
- PNE Winter Fair
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
Other websites you might also find of interest are VancouverFoodFestivals.ca, VancouverForKids.ca, and VancouversBestRestaurants.ca.
