Glynn County Georgia St. Simons Island Food and Spirits Festival
For a run of autumns, the live oaks at Gascoigne Bluff hosted one of the Georgia coast’s most distinctive food gatherings. The St. Simons Food + Spirits Festival, as its own layers most often styled it, was founded in 2012 by Griffin Bufkin and Harrison Sapp, the co-owners of Southern Soul Barbecue, and it channelled its proceeds to Hospice of the Golden Isles. Across its documented life it grew from a September debut into a multi-day autumn festival week spread over several island venues, built from ticketed dinners, tastings and competitions rather than a single gate.
That run has a clear end in the record. Magazine, organiser-derived and festival-insider layers document editions from 2012 through October 2017; no layer gathered shows an edition in 2018 or later. Present-day guide pages that still present the festival as a going concern are stale or machine-generated, and this article does not rely on them. What follows is the festival exactly as the surviving record documents it.
About the Festival
The published name never settled into a single form. Organiser-derived and local magazine layers print “St. Simons Food + Spirits Festival”; a 2012 food blog and the organiser’s original website form, preserved in a 2013 magazine layer, spell it “Saint Simons Food & Spirits Festival”; a festival-insider layer from 2017 lengthens it to “St. Simons Island Food + Spirits Festival”; and other magazine layers write “St. Simons Food and Spirits Festival”, the spelled-out form this article takes its title from. None of those variants is merged into the others here.
The festival belonged to St. Simons Island, the island community in Glynn County; the county seat is Brunswick, on the mainland, and the island itself holds no such title. The organisation behind the event was a nonprofit organisation whose charity of choice, its named beneficiary, was Hospice of the Golden Isles, per festival-insider and magazine layers. Bufkin and Sapp’s founding role is recorded in a 2017 local features magazine layer, which quotes the festival spokesperson saying the pair “founded the St. Simons festival six years ago”. In 2017 The King and Prince Beach & Golf Resort was billed as presenting the festival, a presenting-sponsor credit only; the resort was not the organiser. Staff appear in the layers by role, an assistant festival director and a spokesperson, rather than as the event’s proprietors.
Its ground was anchored and scattered at once: a 2012 news layer bills the inaugural festival at Gascoigne Bluff, and a 2015 magazine layer places the Saturday event at Gascoigne Bluff Park, while a 2016 magazine layer describes ticketed events spread across “several beautiful, historic venues throughout St. Simons Island”, with the Saturday tasting held at the bluff. No street address for the festival appears in any layer gathered.
For a useful comparison, see the Gilmer County Georgia Apple Arts Festival for another county festival.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Published name forms | St. Simons Food + Spirits Festival; also printed as Saint Simons Food & Spirits Festival, St. Simons Island Food + Spirits Festival and St. Simons Food and Spirits Festival |
| Status in the record | Documented from 2012 to 2017; no edition after October 2017 appears in any gathered layer |
| Founders | Griffin Bufkin and Harrison Sapp, co-owners of Southern Soul Barbecue |
| Beneficiary | Hospice of the Golden Isles, the festival’s charity of choice |
| Stated founding | 2012, per a Hospice of the Golden Isles statement carried in a 2017 features layer |
| Main ground | Gascoigne Bluff, printed as Gascoigne Bluff Park in the 2015 magazine layer |
| Other settings | Ticketed events spread across several historic island venues, per a 2016 magazine layer |
| Ticketing | Multi-event format; tickets and times varied per day and per event, and no single festival-wide price is published |
| Last documented edition | October 4–8, 2017 |
| Fundraising recorded | Over seventy thousand dollars donated to Hospice of the Golden Isles by 2017 |
History
A Hospice of the Golden Isles statement carried in the 2017 features layer dates the founding plainly: “The St. Simons Food + Spirits Festival, founded in 2012”. That stated start matches the documented debut the same September, though even the first edition’s dates arrive in two forms — an industry-news layer printing September 20–23, 2012, a food-blog layer printing September 21–23 — and both printings stand.
The following year’s edition ran October 1–6, 2013, with a magazine layer preserving its day-by-day schedule of separately ticketed events. By 2015 the festival was being billed the fourth annual: its September 30–October 4 edition put the Saturday tasting on October 3, in a format that had settled into tasting and mixology tents, a craft and artisan market, a Kid’s Zone and cooking demonstrations at the Saturday event.
The 2016 edition was announced for October 5–9 and then overtaken by weather. Hurricane Matthew cancelled the main festival; an abbreviated festival was instead held in December 2016, per the 2017 features layer, and the festival-insider layer records that holders of 2016 tickets were offered an exchange into 2017 events. The October 4–8, 2017 edition was billed the fifth annual by a Jacksonville magazine layer and the sixth annual by the festival-insider layer; the difference turns on whether the cancelled 2016 counts, and the record never settles it.
After October 2017 the trail stops: no organiser, news or magazine layer gathered shows a 2018 edition or anything beyond it, and pages published today describing the festival as currently annual, some inventing contradictory spring or November timings, are quarantined layers, not evidence the run continued.
What to Expect
Anyone reconstructing this festival from its own record should picture a week of separately ticketed occasions rather than one fenced ground with a single gate. A 2017 magazine layer compresses the format into one line, tickets and times vary per day and per event, and the 2013 schedule shows what that meant in practice: dinners, a crawl between venues and a VIP hospitality suite each carried their own arrangements.
The names on the bill changed with the years. The 2012 edition, per its food-blog layer, was headlined by cookbook authors Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart, with chef Ford Fry, food writer Libbie Summers and beekeeper Ted Dennard among the participants. The 2013 programme, preserved by a magazine layer, included the Pier Crawl, a First Bite Kick-Off Reception, a Southern Soul alfresco dinner, the Maker’s Mark BBQ Pro-Am, The Market presented by Viola’s Market and a SPIRITual Sunday Brunch. Saturday in 2015 brought the tasting tent and the mixology tent, the craft and artisan market, the Kid’s Zone and cooking demonstrations at Gascoigne Bluff Park.
The final documented edition, in October 2017, opened with Southern Soul Barbecue’s FIREBOX BBQ on the Bluff Invitational at Gascoigne Bluff on the evening of October 5 and closed with a Sunday Gospel Brunch. Between those bookends sat Culinary + Beverage Classes, Flights and Bites with the Coastal Stir bartender competition, and a Chef Showdown staged during Saturday’s Tasting Under the Oaks. The December 2016 gathering was a different thing altogether: an abbreviated substitute for the cancelled October festival, never the full week in a colder month.
Planning Your Visit
Because this festival belongs to the past, this section describes how attending worked during its documented years rather than how to arrange a trip today. The shape of the week rewarded early decisions: with each dinner, class and tasting sold as its own ticketed event, a visitor assembled the festival piece by piece from the published schedule instead of buying one pass. The 2013 day-by-day schedule and the 2017 note that tickets and times varied per day and per event remain the honest guide to how planning felt.
The Saturday event at Gascoigne Bluff Park was the anchor most layers return to, while evening occasions moved among the island’s historic venues. No street address for the festival is printed in any layer gathered, so the record offers the bluff and the island, not a gate to aim for. Present-day guide pages listing current dates for this festival are the stale or machine-generated material the research record marks them as; nothing in the organiser, news or magazine layers supports a present-day edition.
A Sample Run Through the 2017 Edition
The last documented edition ran October 4–8, 2017, and its published shape makes the most honest itinerary available. Thursday belonged to barbecue: Southern Soul Barbecue’s FIREBOX BBQ on the Bluff Invitational took over Gascoigne Bluff from 6 p.m. on October 5. Friday’s published offerings ran to the classroom and the bar, the Culinary + Beverage Classes and Flights and Bites, the latter carrying the Coastal Stir bartender competition. Saturday centred on the Tasting Under the Oaks at the bluff, with the Chef Showdown staged during it. Sunday closed the week at the table with the Gospel Brunch. A visitor following that skeleton in 2017 met the festival’s whole range, fire, instruction, competition and one long Sunday meal, without ever buying a ticket covering the entire week.
How It Compares
Two other gatherings are easy to confuse with this one, and the record keeps both apart. The St. Simons Land Trust Oyster Roast occupies the same Gascoigne Bluff Park in January and has run since 2000 under a different organisation, the Land Trust; it shares the venue and nothing else, and its roast is no survival or offshoot of the food and spirits festival. The Savannah Food & Wine Festival, meanwhile, belongs to Chatham County and its own city; the two events overlapped in era and in outlook, ticketed tastings on the Georgia coast, but they were staged by different people in different counties and never formed a single circuit.
What set the St. Simons festival apart within its own record was the pairing of a chef-led programme with one named charity: every documented layer that discusses purpose returns to Hospice of the Golden Isles as the beneficiary.
Checklist
Reading the record of this festival, keep these points in hand:
- Treat 2012 to 2017 as the documented run; nothing later is shown.
- Expect name variants, since plus-sign, ampersand and spelled-out forms all appear in print.
- Each event carried its own ticket; no single admission price exists in the record.
- Keep the 2016 cancellation and the abbreviated December substitute separate in your mind.
- Leave the 2017 billing question open, because fifth annual and sixth annual both stand in print.
- Do not mistake the Land Trust’s January oyster roast for a continuation of this festival.
- Set aside present-day guide pages promising current dates; they are not evidence.
Beyond the Bluff
The festival was never only its Saturday ground. Its 2016 description spreads the programme across several beautiful, historic venues throughout the island, so its true map was the whole of St. Simons Island, with Gascoigne Bluff as the best-documented anchor. On the mainland sat Brunswick, the county seat; the festival’s layers keep the island and the seat distinct, and so does this article. For a reader visiting the island today, the bluff endures as a place, but the record gives no warrant for expecting its tents each October; the roast that returns there each January belongs to the Land Trust, not to this festival’s organisers.
Why the Festival Mattered
Within Glynn County’s documented food culture, the festival’s significance rests on three legs the record supports. It was chef-founded, created by two working restaurateurs, Bufkin and Sapp, and its programmes kept working chefs, writers and producers, from Nathalie Dupree and Ford Fry to a local beekeeper, in front of ticket-buying audiences. It was charity-bound throughout its run, with Hospice of the Golden Isles named as beneficiary across the layers and over seventy thousand dollars in donations recorded by 2017; that total measures giving, not crowds, and no layer gathered publishes an attendance figure for any edition. And it was weather-marked: Hurricane Matthew’s cancellation and the December substitute show a festival absorbing a direct hit and still staging a full edition the following October, the last the record shows.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do sources disagree about whether 2017 was the fifth or sixth annual festival?
A Jacksonville magazine layer billed the October 2017 edition the fifth annual, while the festival-insider layer billed it the sixth annual. The gap turns on whether the cancelled 2016 festival counts in the sequence; each layer counted its own way, and no source gathered reconciles the two billings.
What happened to the festival in 2016?
The 2016 edition was announced for October 5–9, but Hurricane Matthew cancelled the main festival. An abbreviated festival was held in December 2016 instead, per the 2017 features layer, and the festival-insider layer records that holders of 2016 tickets were offered an exchange into 2017 events.
Where did the money the festival raised actually go?
The festival’s charity of choice and beneficiary was Hospice of the Golden Isles, per festival-insider and magazine layers. A hospice statement carried in the 2017 features layer records that the festival had donated over seventy thousand dollars to the hospice by 2017, a donations total across the run.
Is the January oyster roast at Gascoigne Bluff Park the same event under another name?
No. The St. Simons Land Trust Oyster Roast is a January event run by the Land Trust, a different organisation, and it has run since 2000. It shares Gascoigne Bluff Park with the food and spirits festival and nothing more; no layer merges them.
What to Expect From the Next Glynn County Georgia St. Simons Island Food and Spirits Festival
How often is Glynn County Georgia St. Simons Island Food and Spirits Festival held?
During its documented run the festival was staged in the autumn of each year from 2012 to 2017, usually across several days in late September or early October. That pattern describes the past only: no edition after October 2017 appears in the organiser, news or magazine layers gathered, so the record does not show the festival being held now.
When is the next Glynn County Georgia St. Simons Island Food and Spirits Festival?
None is announced in the record. The last documented edition ran October 4–8, 2017, and no organiser layer gathered publishes a return, a revival date or a successor event. Present-day guide pages that name upcoming dates for it are stale or machine-generated and contradict one another; they are not announcements.
Will the dates change?
No organiser has published dates for any future edition, so there is nothing on the calendar that could shift. Any future edition would need a fresh announcement, and none exists in the layers gathered; the spring and November timings on current guide pages were invented by those pages and should not be relied on.
The festival survives exactly where its record leaves it: in a hospice statement that names its founding and its giving, in magazine schedules that preserve its programmes year by year, and in the memory of one storm-shortened autumn at Gascoigne Bluff. Taken on those terms, documented, dated and finished, it remains a complete chapter of the Georgia coast’s food history, and no layer gathered announces anything further.
