Overview Chefs For Farmers is a Texas food and wine festival that pairs each participating restaurant with a local farm and gives it a stipend to buy its ingredients straight from that farm, then puts the chefs side by side for a weekend of tastings. It runs in two cities: at Autry Park in Houston in late September and at Old City Park in Dallas in the fall. It is produced by a21, the event company behind the Food Network South Beach Wine and Food Festival and Pebble Beach Food and Wine. On site Each city builds to the Main Event, a Saturday and Sunday afternoon walk-around where every ticket includes unlimited tastings, drinks and entertainment, and VIP guests get in an hour before general admission. It is 21 and over. Chef dinners lead into it: in 2025 Houston added a dinner series and Dallas a second day and an Italian walk-around, with activations called Texas Made, The Rosé Ranch and The Tailgate Experience. The 2026 Houston program opened with a Surf and Turf Supper at Navy Blue hosted by Aaron Bludorn, Alberto Marcolongo and Lamar Moore. Audience It is a Texas crowd: in the festival's 2025 partnership overview, 91% of guests came from inside the state. Tickets cover all the food and drink, so guests graze station to station over a three- or four-hour session, and a weekend pass covers both days. Talent and Influencers The 2024 Houston chefs included Aaron Bludorn, Kirthan Shenoy, Bobby Matos, Quy Hoang, Robin Wong and Arash Kharat; Dallas had Travis Wyatt, Clement Loubeyre, Steven McHugh and RJ Yoakum. Past restaurants run from Nobu, Uchiko and Pappas Bros. Steakhouse to Truth BBQ, The Original Ninfa's and Fletcher's Original Corny Dogs. The 2026 Dallas dinners listed Misti Norris, Evelyn Garcia and Henry Lu of JŪN, Ian Lanphear of Isidore and Michael 'Batman' Rhodes of Café Momentum. Track record Iris Midler founded Chefs For Farmers in 2010 as an intimate farm-to-table dinner series, and it grew into a multi-day festival across two cities; 2026 marked 16 years. A portion of ticket proceeds goes to nonprofit partners, which have included The Seed Project Foundation, Giving Tree Acres in Dallas, the Houston Food Bank, Urban Harvest and New Friends New Life. Brand presence Each city sells a presenting partner, and naming rights go on the dinner series and the VIP lounge. In 2026 the Houston Main Event was presented by Stella Artois and the Surf and Turf Supper by BMW; in 2025 Peroni brought the Italian walk-around to Dallas. Partner tiers include activation space and sampling at the events, logos on Main Event entrance signage, chef and consumer gifting, product integration into event content and access to the chefs.