News Briefs: Winchester weekend brings food, music and tradition

Winchester Café opens its doors

Bright Leaf hot dogs, French fries, and warm banana pud­ding were a few of the com­fort foods served at Winchester Café when it opened its doors to the com­mu­ni­ty Monday.

“Today is the first offi­cial soft open­ing day,” said Monty Hobbs, pro­pri­etor of the Main Street din­er and co-pro­duc­er of the TV show filmed there, Finding Kindness Kentucky. He said more than 100 peo­ple showed up.

The restau­rant will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. dai­ly, Monday through Sunday.

The cur­rent lim­it­ed lunch menu includes pulled pork bar­be­cue sand­wich­es, hot dogs, fried bologna sand­wich­es, cheese­burg­ers, and fried chick­en sand­wich­es, as well as banana pud­ding, side orders and soft drinks.

They will soon offer break­fast begin­ning at 6 a.m., and even­tu­al­ly will add items such as pimien­to cheese and grilled cheese sand­wich­es, a soup of the day and fried apple turnovers.

Finding Kindness Kentucky, the first episode of which fea­tured coun­try music singer Crystal Gayle, will air in late January. The cur­rent first sea­son is now stream­ing on the UP Faith & Family channel.

Hobbs said there would be a red car­pet event for Crystal Gayle at the café Dec. 5.

Pioneer Festival this weekend

The 47^th annu­al Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival will be in Downtown Winchester this weekend.

The city’s biggest gath­er­ing of the year will fea­ture arts and crafts ven­dors, food trucks, ser­vice group infor­ma­tion booths, and live music Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 5 and 6, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The fes­tiv­i­ties begin Friday night from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. with a down­town street dance fea­tur­ing the Jimmy Buffett cov­er band Conch Republic in front of the courthouse.

“They have a lot of ener­gy, and they are real­ly good,” City Commissioner Kitty Strode said.

On Saturday morn­ing, run­ners will com­pete in the GRC Cross Country Daniel Boone 5K hon­or­ing David Borden at 8:30. Registration is avail­able on the web­site, danielboonepioneerfestival.com.

There will also be the GRC Cheer Walk with Friends that day.

Strode said this year’s fes­ti­val will be ded­i­cat­ed Friday night to Ken Davis, a long­time sup­port­er of the fes­ti­val, who passed away ear­li­er this year.

“I think it’s very appro­pri­ate because he worked so hard for so many years” help­ing to orga­nize the fes­ti­val, said Strode, who is one of this year’s coördinators.

Strode expressed appre­ci­a­tion for all of the busi­ness­es and groups that make the fes­ti­val hap­pen, from Gator Harrison, who runs the sound sys­tem, to the Boy Scouts, who do the trash pick­up, and every­one in between.

“It takes a vil­lage,” she said.

Parking is lim­it­ed, so a shut­tle ser­vice will be pro­vid­ed from George Rogers Clark High School on the south side of town and Conkwright Elementary School on the north side.

Labor Day Parade is Monday

The Labor Day Parade on Main Street will be the high­light of the annu­al Winchester Labor Day Celebration and Parade this weekend.

This year the parade will fea­ture the march­ing bands of Kentucky State University, Simmons College of Kentucky in Louisville, and George Rogers Clark High School.

GRC girls bas­ket­ball coach Robbie Graham is this year’s grand marshal.

Winchester’s parade is in its 122^nd year and Sherry Hampton, one of the orga­niz­ers, said she thinks it is the longest-run­ning Labor Day parade in Kentucky.

“It’s a tra­di­tion for us, and we seem to have more ven­dors than ever” this year, she said.

This year’s theme is “One City, One Legacy, All Tradition,” and will include a cel­e­bra­tion of the George Rogers Clark High School girls and boys state cham­pi­onship bas­ket­ball teams and Ale‑8 One’s 100^th anniversary.

There will be com­mem­o­ra­tive T‑shirts for sale at the event.

The fes­ti­val begins Friday night, Sept. 4, from 6 p.m. at Heritage Park on Washington Street and will con­tin­ue Saturday and Sunday start­ing at 8 in the morning.

Washington Street will be closed from Maple to Oliver streets dur­ing the event.

There will be DJs and live bands all three days: Rhythm and Soul Band, Honey Child, the Tim Talbert Band, DJ Brown and DJ Sly.

Churches will also have gospel singing at the park, and the first prac­tice will be Thursday at 7 p.m. at Broadway Baptist Church.

Prior to the parade on Sept. 7, there will be the crown­ing of the Labor Day Queen and her court at 11 a.m. at the Broadway church, and then after the parade, DJ Sly will pro­vide the entertainment.