Bay Ridge’s Fifth Avenue Spring Festival promises fun for all

Rocco’s pizza eating contest among expected highlights

May 28, 2015 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The festival usually offers a little bit of everything, including people making funny balloon hats for kids. Eagle file photo by Paula Katinas

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Bay Ridge will roll out the red carpet and welcome hundreds of thousands of people to the neighborhood when the Fifth Avenue Spring Festival takes place on Sunday, May 31.

The festival, which will run from noon to 6 p.m. along Fifth Avenue from Bay Ridge Avenue (69th Street) to 85th Street, will offer fun, food, music, dance, rides, games and more.

The event is sponsored by the Bay Ridge Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District (BID), a public-private partnership representing the interests of property owners, merchants and residents on Fifth Avenue between 65th and 85th streets, one of Southwest Brooklyn’s premiere shopping strips. The BID works to plant trees, install benches, sweep away litter and generally beautify the avenue to attract customers so that storeowners can benefit and the local economy can improve.

The festival is considered by many in Bay Ridge to be a highlight of the spring season in the community.

The event features concert stages where bands give live performances and dance troupes dazzle the crowds. There are also outdoor cafes, special sales, pony rides, belly dancers, sausage stands, dunk tanks and a lot more.

If you want to hear singers who fancy themselves as the next Ariana Grande, you might want to watch the 10th Annual Bean Post Idol, an American Idol-style karaoke contest that will take place outside the Bean Post Pub at 7525 Fifth Ave.

Another highlight of the festival is sure to be the 11th Annual Pizza-Eating Contest at Rocco’s Pizzeria. Contestants will eat slice after slice of pizza in the contest, which will take place in front of Rocco’s at 7818 Fifth Ave. at 3 p.m. Owner Dan Loccisano and his crew will have the restaurant’s famous 18-inch large pies ready for the hungry contestants to eat. “They have to eat the whole pie, even the crust!” Loccisano told the Brooklyn Eagle on Wednesday.

Actually, the winning contestant will probably eat more than one pie. Last year’s winner downed 30 slices of pizza in 12 minutes.

Contestants have to qualify to enter the contest by eating an 18-inch pie in eight minutes or less.

The pizza-eating contest came about because Loccisano was looking for a way for his restaurant to stand out during the festival. “We just wanted to do something for the event. A friend of mine suggested that we have a pizza-eating contest, and I thought it was a good idea,” he said.

The contest, which always draws a large crowd of spectators, doesn’t just offer a chance for people to see contestants consume copious amounts of pizza. The event raises money for charity. “Every year, we donate money to a local charity,” Loccisano said.

This year, Loccisano is donating the funds raised at the contest to Pietro’s Fight, a nonprofit organization formed to raise money and awareness of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a rare form of the disease.

For more information on the Fifth Avenue Spring Festival, call the BID at 718-238-8181.