The story
Slawburger Festival in Fayetteville
Slawburger Festival fills the downtown courthouse square in Fayetteville, Tennessee each April with food, crafts and an eating competition built around the slawburger, an all-beef burger topped with sweet mustard-based coleslaw that dates to the 1920s and that Fayetteville claims as its birthplace. Now in its eleventh year, the 2026 festival opens with a ceremony featuring the Elk River Youth Chorus and runs vendors from morning into evening.
Fayetteville, Tennessee, a small county seat in the state's southern middle region near the Alabama line, holds a downtown square festival each April built entirely around one regional food: the slawburger, an all-beef burger topped with a sweet and tangy mustard-based coleslaw that local historians trace back to the 1920s.