In usual Oregon fashion with the sun shining and rain falling, Florence’s locals (and some out-0f-towners!) headed out for this year’s 11th Annual Wine and Chowder Festival and Chowder Trail. This year marked the 11th annual festival and people were surely excited to try some of the best chowder Florence has to offer after last year’s festival was cancelled due to covid-19 concerns.
Florence is home to some of the best seafood along the Oregon Coast, with clam chowder being a staple of the town. It’s apparent at the festival 
that it’s a time for community members to come together and all take pride in their town and food. The trail is a three-day event consisting of a raffle ticket hunt for locally blown glass art pieces, a wine trail that took place on Saturday, and the chowder trail on Sunday.
Seven restaurants participated this year including Firehouse, Novelli’s, Lovejoy’s, Homegrown, ICM, Three Rivers Casino, and the Florence Event Center. Each restaurant brought out their best chowder for participants to come try in hopes of being voted 1st place. Upon arrival you are given a map of the trail with a place to make your selection for best chowder. It was a great sight seeing people cheerfully walking around with their maps in hand discussing amongst themselves about each chowder.
At the end of the day with the the locals and restaurant participants huddled around, Novelli’s was crowned 1st place for their crab chowder. If you didn’t get a chance to make it out for this years Wine and Chowder Festival and Chowder Trail, be sure to keep an eye out for next year’s for great chowder, great people, and a great time.
