Head to Deanie’s Seafood in Bucktown each spring and revel in Louisiana crawfish during the annual Pinch A Palooza Festival, a crawfest presented by Deanie’s Seafood Restaurants. Because, seriously: What’s more fun than a festival centered around mudbugs?

A Full Day of Entertainment & Activities

Pinch A Palooza features a Crawfish Eating Contest, great local bands, crawfish races, the world’s only Crawfish Tic Tac Toe board, bounce houses for the kids, plus cool drinks and delicious hot boiled Louisiana crawfish.

Pinch A Palooza Crawfish Eating Contest

Competitive crawfish pinchers will face off during two heats of contestants followed by a championship round to name the Pinch A Palooza Crawfish Eating Champion. The first person to finish 3 lbs. of boiled crawfish during heats 1 and 2 goes on to the final round.

When heat winners elbow their way back to the table, they go head to head to be declared the first to eat the most crawfish in 10 minutes. The winning competitor earns the title of Pinch A Palooza Crawfish Eating Contest Champion and a Deanie’s Seafood crawfish boil for 20!

Pinch A Palooza is more than a crawfish boil

Each year, Deanie’s brings out a lineup of local musicians for a day of fun and activities emceed by actor and comedian Johnny Rock. The Pinch A Palooza Festival 2019 lineup included performances by Roux the Day, Ryan Foret & Foret Tradition, Vince Vance & The Valiants, and The Topcats.

Free inflatables, arts & crafts, plus fun games and activities like crawfish races and the world’s only Live Crawfish Tic Tac Toe table entertain the little ones, plus Deanie’s lovable mascot, Pincher, hands out hugs, dances to tunes and takes selfies with fest-goers all throughout the day.

Grab a lawn chair and a neighbor and head on over to Bucktown for Pinch A Palooza 2020. (Our festival takes place in April, date TBD.)