Fat Tuesday is technically over, with Mardi Gras celebrations being held in New Orleans on Feb. 21. But in Tucson, the party is just getting started.
The 3rd annual Mardi Gras Festival, hosted by Tucson Mardi Gras, will return on Saturday, March 11, and Sunday, March 12, at 1102 E. Grant Road.
The festival will be free to the public and feature parades, Louisiana style cuisine, live music, specialty drinks and a “Bourbon Street Balcony Experience,” according to the Tucson Mardi Gras website.
Coordinators at Tucson Mardi Gras decided to hold the event March 11 and 12 to ensure warm weather for the festivities, as opposed to hosting the event on the traditional Mardi Gras date.
“Due to actual Mardi Gras falling so early in February for 2023, we made the decision to move this event to March, plus we know Tucsonans don’t like to be outside when it’s cold, so we will be celebrating when it’s a little warmer and the crawfish are bigger!” said Bobby Sutton, creator of Tucson Mardi Gras.
The main Mardi Gras festival will be on March 11 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and will be more oriented towards the 18-and-up crowd. March 12 will be “Family Festival Day” and will feature festivities for the whole family from noon to 6 p.m.
However, if you can’t wait and find yourself in need of some southern-style cooking now, or anytime of year, local Tucson restaurants, with “Louisiana leanings,” The Delta, 135 S. Sixth Ave., and The Parish, 6453 N. Oracle Road, are ready to serve you.
“The restaurants (Parish and The Delta) are both southern leaning in nature. A lot of people try to put us in the category of being Cajun or Creole or New Orleans but we never really tout that. We have Louisiana leanings but we try and put our own spin on southern food,” said Steve Dunn, one of the restaurants’ owners.
The Parish has been serving southern-style cuisine since 2011 and The Delta has been certified by the Tucson City of Gastronomy. Both restaurants celebrated Mardi Gras with their own respective festivals on Feb 21.
“We have roots in Louisiana; I used to live and work there and my business partner is from Baton Rouge and we just like to have a great time,” Dunn said.
Both The Parish and The Delta feature dishes like seafood gumbo, “cast iron cornbread,” pork rinds, poutine platters and an array of specialty drinks and cocktails.
“The chef is just always thinking outside of the box and finding new ways to do things, you know?” Dunn said.
Dual restaurant chef and owner, Travis Peters has competed in reality cooking shows like Guy’s Grocery Games, Chopped and Iron Chef Tucson, winning first prize in both Guy’s Grocery Games and Iron Chef Tucson.
Find the restaurants’ full menus on their websites — thedeltatucson.com and theparishtucson.com. Both are open seven days a week.
To learn more about the upcoming Mardi Gras Festival, go to tucsonmardigras.com.
Every state is known for its own virtues and vices. But harmful behavior on the individual level can result in staggering economic costs, considering that gambling addiction costs the U.S. $5 billion per year and smoking costs dwarf that with over $300 billion per year. The personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2019’s Most Sinful States as well as accompanying videos along with its Mardi Gras Facts - Booze, Floats, Money & More infographic. To determine where the U.S. has the most moral growing to do, WalletHub compared the 50 states based on seven sinful behaviors: anger and hatred, jealousy, excesses and vices, greed, lust, vanity and laziness.
