Picklesburgh has begun

Lynn Grimes was a blur, her blonde hair held back by a black hair band as she hurriedly got things ready in the Aunt Carol’s Pickles & Dip booth on the Rachel Carson Bridge. The high noon opening of the seventh edition of Picklesburgh was 10 minutes away and Grimes didn’t have a moment to spare.

“We’re energized!” said Grimes. “We’ve been doing this since the very beginning, so we are excited. We missed it last year and covid was the year before, so we have been ready to come out here and do this again.”

The 2022 edition of Picklesburgh is officially underway on the Carson Bridge and Riverside on the 10^th Street Bypass in Downtown Pittsburgh.

By the stroke of noon, a steady stream of pedestrians made their way onto the bridge and began nudging their way toward booths filled with every imaginable kind of pickle product.

There were spicy hot pickles, wild dill pickle jerky and Millie’s pickle-flavored ice cream, which James Hausman, 45, of Jefferson Hills, bravely tried for the first time.

“That’s wild. I would not eat a lot of that,” Hausman said. “It literally tastes like a pickle cream. It’s bizarre. It’s interesting. I’m glad I experienced it, but I would not eat that in a large quantity.”

“I think it’s fun just to see the festival and all the costumes and activities,” said Danielle Vega, 30, of Kennedy Township. “This is only my second time at Picklesburgh. I’m a pickle person. I’m excited to try all the pickles.”

Vega was accompanied by Adam Fleissner, 33, Cheswick, who was looking forward to trying some new pickle-flavored concoctions.

“I like fried pickles. I’ve done hot dogs inside of pickles before,” said Fleissner. “That was pretty funny. There’s always a lot of interesting stuff.”

There are plenty of other things to eat as long as you like pickles, but being a pickle person is apparently not a prerequisite for participating in Picklesburgh.

Tina Ward, 59, of Penn Hills doesn’t like pickles at all. But she showed up at Picklesburgh because her husband Curt, 61, wanted to come.

“This is my first time,” he said. “The hot pickles were good. They say they have some cheese-stuffed pickles, so that might be interesting. We’ll see how it goes. We have our dog at daycare today so we’re going to make the best of it.”

Carrie Butler, 40, McCandless, had four children between the ages of 5 and 10 in tow and she said all but one of them loves pickles.

“I wanted to try the pickle shaved ice, but no one would share it with me so I got cherry instead,” said Butler. “We’re interested in the pickle candy so that’s where we’re headed next. We’ve got some pickle merch – balloons and pins and hats. It’s our first time here. So far so good.”

The Picklesburgh Festival continues through Sunday.