Red Rock Region Chocolate and Fine Foods Festival

Craft Chocolate, Explained by the People Who Make It

The Red Rock Region Chocolate and Fine Foods Festival is a two-day gathering of craft chocolate makers and specialty food producers at Washington County Legacy Park, the county fairgrounds in Hurricane. It is a tasting festival first: you walk the hall, sample bars from different makers, and buy from the person who made what you just tasted.

The interesting part is the chocolate itself. Craft makers work from cacao sourced from specific growing regions, and the festival is built around showing how much that origin changes the flavor. Two dark bars at the same percentage can taste of red fruit or of roasted nuts depending on where the beans were grown and how they were fermented and roasted. Tasting them side by side, with the maker explaining why, is something no grocery-store aisle offers.

The Fine-Foods Half

The second half of the name matters. Alongside the chocolate makers, the hall carries specialty food producers, most of them from southern Utah: bakers, pastry makers and small-batch producers whose work does not usually reach a shop shelf. It turns the visit into a food market as much as a chocolate show, and it is the easiest place in the county to find a local producer you did not know existed.

Demonstrations and tastings run through both days, so the festival rewards a slow lap rather than a quick one.

A Young Festival

The festival is new. Founder Jake Potter launched it with a first edition on January 31 and February 1, 2026, with a stated mission of connecting the community with "the makers and stories behind extraordinary foods." Holding it at the end of January is deliberate: it fills the quietest stretch of the southern Utah event calendar, after the holidays and before the spring race and festival season begins.

Making a Day of It

Sand Hollow and Quail Creek reservoirs are minutes from the fairgrounds, so the festival pairs naturally with a winter afternoon on the water or a drive through Hurricane and La Verkin. Late January is mild by mountain-west standards, which is why the county's winter running calendar is so full: a riverside half marathon in St. George follows two weeks later.

If the festival leaves you wanting more, the dessert and ice cream guide covers the sweet shops in St. George that are open the rest of the year.

Who It Suits

Anyone who has bought an expensive chocolate bar and wondered what justified it, home bakers looking for better ingredients, and families after an indoor January outing. It is a small festival rather than a convention, and the appeal is access to the makers rather than scale.