The story
Arkansas Cornbread Festival in Little Rock
The Arkansas Cornbread Festival is an annual fall celebration of Southern culinary heritage in Little Rock's South Main Street (SoMa) district, inaugurated in 2011 by Anita Davis. The free street festival centers on a judged cornbread competition that raises funds for local nonprofits, held on streets surrounding Bernice Garden, the public green space anchoring the district's revival.
Little Rock's South Main Street corridor, known locally as SoMa, spent much of the late 20th century as an overlooked stretch of the city before a wave of small businesses, community gardens, and grassroots events began reshaping it in the 2000s and 2010s.