Food & Wine 2025 Reviews

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

Kings Island has introduced a new Food Punch Card for the 2025 Food & Wine Festival! Simply pick up a card, purchase 5 different food items (from a list of 10), and head over to Sweet Spot to pick up "...an exclusive Food & Wine dessert...". I haven't seen them in person, but I am happy that Kings Island decided to bring a card to this event. Participants should expect to spend at least $50 on festival food offerings to receive the special dessert. This is certainly better, in my opinion, than having nothing available that might encourage guests to participate in the offerings. I am excited to see what this expanded event looks like on my next visit!

Would a tasting card that offered five foods for $45 have been too much of a loss for Six Flags? I don't know. Budget cuts and cost synergies for the shareholders. [Massive shrug emoji goes here.]

 

What are your thoughts? Would you welcome the Food & Wine Festival back for 2026, or would you create a whole new event? (that would cost a lot more money than reusing the current event and possibly improving on it). What [realistic] event would you suggest the park put on?

I would opt to bring the Food & Wine Festival back, and expand it by having some more offerings under the Eiffel Tower. It could eventually grow to have some specialty offerings in one or two dining locations per park area, but that may need to wait until the new Six Flags is more stable than they are now. The current festival areas (Tower Gardens, along the path around the Eiffel Tower, and the new festival tent) are nice and keep the event contained. I enjoy the size of this festival for what it is. 

[Tr0y]

8 minutes ago, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

Kings Island has introduced a new Food Punch Card for the 2025 Food & Wine Festival! Simply pick up a card, purchase 5 different food items (from a list of 10), and head over to Sweet Spot to pick up "...an exclusive Food & Wine dessert...".

Straight out of the Mickey Mouse playbook. https://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2024/08/29/we-paid-29-for-dessert-in-epcot-was-it-worth-it/
 

That being said, I hope it meets expectations.

[Winterfestguy]

The Food and Wine festival misses the mark in my opinion and will be surprised if it returns as a profitable event. We were at the park Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and had a few observations - Forget about hearing any of the music since with both Food and Wine stages playing their music at the same time while the Grand Carousel belts out its music at the same time and all three being all overpowered by the loud sound of Hot Rhythm nights when it plays at the scheduled times, not the most pleasant enjoyment of the music - many people did not have any wine or food from the festival in the new circus tent (most brought food and drinks from other park locations or were just there to hear the music) - the food was overpriced for the portion size and rather limited in selections offered. The wine flight was probably the best alcohol deal. Nobody seemed to be playing the festival games but did like how they used all the empty wine bottles for a ring toss game for the kids. After seeing this how this festival was ran, I don’t have high hopes for Carnival in July.

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

6 minutes ago, Winterfestguy said:

 Forget about hearing any of the music since with both Food and Wine stages playing their music at the same time while the Grand Carousel belts out its music at the same time and all three being all overpowered by the loud sound of Hot Rhythm nights when it plays at the scheduled times, not the most pleasant enjoyment of the music 

This is one of the reasons why I think Food and Wine should be held in between opening weekend and Memorial Day. That way you don't have the loud bandstand show interfering with the laid back atmosphere of Food and Wine. 

[robintodd]

My wife and I went last Saturday for the Food and Wine and had a FANTASTIC time.  We are both wine drinkers and found the selections held a wide variety.  We got the wine flight.  As far as food goes the "new" tasting cards are an interesting idea.  The way it works is if you purchase 5 food items you get a special dessert at the sweet spot for free.  It just about figures out the same as the old tasting cards, kind of a 6 for the price of 5 deal.  You can use the tasting card throughout the run of the event.  The one advantage of this over the old way is that if you only want 3 and you have a friend who wants 2 you could give them your card to use and score the dessert.

Anyway, the food was an improvement over last year especially in the variety of offerings.  We had 6 of them and they were all good.  I would suggest though that if the queso with the pork rinds would have been serverd with chips it would have made it a vegetarian offering of which they only had one, the fondue.  I'm not a vegetarian but think the simple switching of something other than pork rinds may have made a couple more sales.

The entertainment was good.  Hi-Fi and River City always bring the goods.  Having the horn section of River City play seperately in the new area was a treat.  My wife and I split our time between two music offerings.  While at the one in tower gardens she felt like she was in a wooded area in Paris.  She should know we have been.   I didn't find the other music to be distracting at all when sitting in each area.  I think I would have liked to see a violin player walking around the main part of tower gardens or if he was there we missed him.

The only thing I found odd was the games.  I know people have kids, etc. but this is an event geared toward adults.  I think maybe 2-3 craft vendors

All in all the event is fantastic and something my wife and I will go back to over the next couple of weeks.  

[IndyGuy4KI]

Moved the reviews of the event into its own thread.

[robintodd]

18 hours ago, IndyGuy4KI said:

Moved the reviews of the event into its own thread.

If you haven't been told your work is appreciated.  I thought about looking for a thread for the review.  Thanks again for your work on keeping us inmates in line and the site organized. I know it's not easy.   

[BoddaH1994]

I checked it out briefly on Sunday. It looks like the food options have been expanded widely. I did not indulge in the food but members of my group did. They seemed to enjoy it. The area looks nice and the new shelter by the carousel turned out well. 

The critiques would include:

1. Still only Fri, Sat, Sun

2. Only in a small area of the park so it's not immersive

3. I still feel like people who would come to the park anyway may see it and only know they're doing it because they happened to be there

With that being said, there were actually people in the Tower Gardens eating and drinking so it seems far more successful than last year, which was a disaster. 

[brenthodge]

7 hours ago, BoddaH1994 said:

I checked it out briefly on Sunday. It looks like the food options have been expanded widely. I did not indulge in the food but members of my group did. They seemed to enjoy it. The area looks nice and the new shelter by the carousel turned out well. 

The critiques would include:

1. Still only Fri, Sat, Sun

2. Only in a small area of the park so it's not immersive

3. I still feel like people who would come to the park anyway may see it and only know they're doing it because they happened to be there

With that being said, there were actually people in the Tower Gardens eating and drinking so it seems far more successful than last year, which was a disaster. 

Its odd running the event during weekly ops on the days that are already the busiest. They clearly see it as an additional revenue, not an attendance driver, like it COULD be during early season weekend only ops with minimally more marketing effort. I feel like they run it when they are already busy hoping people that are already there will stumble in and buy wine. They clearly aren’t using it to drive attendance to the park specifically for it unlike Dollywood that uses events (and the marketing of them) to increase awareness and drive attendance. 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

9 hours ago, BoddaH1994 said:

2. Only in a small area of the park so it's not immersive

3. I still feel like people who would come to the park anyway may see it and only know they're doing it because they happened to be there

With that being said, there were actually people in the Tower Gardens eating and drinking so it seems far more successful than last year, which was a disaster. 

The event as a whole definitely felt bigger than it did last year. 

If the park will not open the festival up to the rest of the park, I'd like to see it expand to the outlined space. Serene space in Tower Gardens, a show and seating in the festival tent, additional food and wine stands near the floral clock, and additional activities around the Eiffel Tower. It would be nice to not have any big sheds in the circle around the Eiffel Tower since the pathway feels cramped with them there.

I would personally prefer to not see F&W decorations across the whole park. Leave that for Haunt and Winterfest. If it's something where festival food options can be found at existing stands around the park then I'd be much more open to it. Same with Grand Carnivale and any other summer festival Kings Island hopes to host. 

[IndyGuy4KI]

Food and Wine

 

[Tr0y]

I participated in this year’s Food and Wine festival.

The food options were better, as well as the presentation of the food compared to last year. (Ditching the boats) The worst food item I had was the poutine fries. There was no gravy or Au jus sauce, and the curds were still cold. Everything else was good.

They chose to use the Disney model of purchasing so many food items gets you a reward. With the reward being a desert from sweet spot. 

The desert had no name and the container was nothing special. Disney at least rewards you with a desert placed into a cup with Emile and the Food and Wine Festival label as a souvenir to take home: 

 

Here is Disney’s Food and Wine desert reward for comparison:

[DJSkyFoxx]

We also gave it a try this past Sunday. Didn't participate in any of it last season, but having observed and compared, this year definitely seems to have some improvements. As per usual though, there are some improvements going forward I would suggest if they decide to do it again next year. I concur with @Tr0y about the poutine fries. That was actually the item my fiancé and I were looking forward to the most. The meat itself was tasty, but no gravy, the curds were mid and the fries were sadly not fresh and hot. The wagyu beef slider was my personal favorite item that we tried. The charcuterie for two was...sad. The cost and the presentation did not match. Handing someone a to-go style container with the items inside it felt like I was at a hospital cafeteria. Not to mention they forgot our bread. I went back to retrieve that and they were nice enough to give us more than the usual amount, however, it was a bit tough to chew. The bread should have been kept in a warmer so it stayed fresh. 

We gave the dark chocolate raspberry dessert a shot. It had a nice flavor, like that of a sorbet. The texture was strange though. 

The raclette was nice. Bread was warm and soft and the red pepper jam spread was tasty. 

The free dessert from Sweet Spot was our favorite. Really refreshing treat on a hot day. The mousse itself tasted fresh and the little cake bit was a nice touch. 

The highlight of the whole event was the mime. I am almost certain the same gentlemen was the one I remember seeing years ago at the park for a different event doing mime things. If I am wrong, then this guy has a doppelganger. But he was a delight to say the least. The live music was decent and they played some recognizable classic rock tunes. 

Overall, we enjoyed ourselves despite some of the food items not scratching up to what they should have been. It was a nice relaxing evening despite the heat. 

Neither of us are wine drinkers so I can't comment on the wine itself.