By By SPIROS GALLOS / Niles Daily Star
NILES - Visitors to the Apple Festival will have a tough time deciding where to eat, what with a virtual smorgasbord of choices available to them.
Over 40 food vendors setting up shop at the festival this weekend will offer a huge variety of carnival food.
Carnival favorites like hot dogs, carmelcorn, sno-cones, nachos and soft drinks will be available, as well as Philly cheese steak sandwiches, salads and sandwich wraps, and even some Hawaiian style roast beef.
Dale Rector, concession chairman for the Apple Festival, said he tries to bring in a good mix of vendors every year. Many of the vendors return to the Applefest every year.
While a majority of the vendors are from the Niles area, some come from as far as Texas or Florida.
Tony Vitto, a Korean war veteran from Muskegon, has sold at the festival for seven years with this one being his eighth.
What keeps Vitto and other vendors like him coming back year after year?
Tomy Ivanoff, owner of Tom's Catering, which is based out of Flint. and Marathon, Fla. is back for his sixth year at the Apple Festival.
Patrons to Ivanoff's stand can bear witness to what he calls "the largest cast-iron frying pan in the United States," Ivanoff said.
When asked about the validity of such a boast, Ivanoff replied, "You might see a larger frying pan, but I guarantee that it won't be a cast-iron frying pan."
Tom's Catering offers a large menu with carnival staple foods such as funnel-cake corndogs and italian sausages, as well as philly cheese steak sandwiches, sweet potato fries, a unique Hawaiian-style beef sandwich, and even Ivanoff's homemade root beer.
Ivanoff travels to many major events like the Indianapolis 500, the Kentucky Derby, the Holland Tulip Festival in Holland. He said the Apple Festival ranks right up there with those events in his book.
In addition to the career food vendors, the Apple Festival has a lot of weekend warriors. Rich and Mary-Ann Pishnoff run Richie's Place to Eat on the weekends.
Along with the Apple Festival, the Pishnoff's also work the Berrien County Youth Fair. This is their fifth Applefest.
Local restauranteur Rich Johnson, owner of Rich's Pizzeria, 1042 Bell Road, operates a booth at the Applefest while his wife, Katie, takes care of the store during the weekend.
But no matter how good their food is, vendors have to meet the standards of the Berrien County Health Department.
Richard Wonacott, one of three health inspectors who will be working the Apple Festival this weekend, is the law when it comes to obtaining a vendors permit for the grounds.
So eat, drink, and be merry at this year's Apple Festival, because there certainly are a lot of choices to suit any festival rover's palette.