Nearly 50 years ago, Colin Barrett’s family purchased one of the most recognizable food booths at the Minnesota State Fair: the Big Pepper.
The story starts with Barrett’s grandfather, John Ivory, the original manager of the State Fair’s beer garden and an honest-to-god fair legend. It’s reported that he worked 50 jobs on the fairgrounds over the years, and for a while he was in charge of running all the Pronto Pup stands, according to a 2023 MPR story.
In 1979, Ivory’s daughter Margaret and her husband, Joe, bought the Big Pepper, the, well, big green pepper-shaped booth that stands along Liggett Street. Not to be outdone, her brother Francis Ivory and his wife, Rosemary, purchased the Strawberry Patch next door that same year.
“This was a long time ago—before I was born,” laughs Barrett, the son of Margaret and Joe. But along with his siblings and cousins, their families have continued to run those green and red stands in front of the Horse Barn, selling deep-fried ravioli and stuffed green peppers from the former and shortcake and other sweets from the latter.
“It was completely family run,” Barrett says. “My family did the Pepper, and my cousins and aunt and uncle owned—and still own—the Strawberry Patch.”
But you won’t be able to visit the Big Pepper when you wander around the fairgrounds any longer. Last year, Barrett says, his aunt was able to pass the Strawberry Patch down to his cousins, who will continue to run the booth for the foreseeable future. But when his mom tried to do the same thing for her children with the Big Pepper this year, the fair turned down their request.
“They just denied us, and gave us no reason, even after we asked them,” Barrett says. “We don’t really have any reason for why we were not allowed to do the same thing that the Patch did, and that a lot of other booths have done at the fair.”
“We were all pretty shocked about the news, but there’s really no appeal process,” he continues. “They just kind of shut us out.”
Every year, the State Fair bids farewell to some vendors as it welcomes new ones. The Big Pepper is one of 11 vendors, including Scenic 61 by New Scenic Cafe and St. Martin’s Olives, that you’ll no longer find in Falcon Heights this year.
But Barrett is perplexed as to why his family was unable to hand off the Pepper to a new generation when they know it’s possible—when in fact, his own extended family was able to do so with the booth right next door. Yes, State Fair food vendors have to reapply for their contracts every year, but the Big Pepper had reliably returned to the fairgrounds since the late ’70s without issue.
The Big Pepper still welcomed lines, and to Barrett’s knowledge, no one else at the State Fair makes a stuffed pepper, so it’s not like their menu was redundant. Visually, the Big Pepper certainly stood out: Over the years, Barrett has heard people wonder, “Is it a pickle? Is it a tooth?” (I remember visiting the fair for the first time and thinking it looked like a Hulk fist sprouting out of the ground.) “Everything now is, like, a trailer with lights on it,” he sighs.
And if you’re hoping, as I was, that perhaps the Big Pepper would live to sling deep-fried ravioli somewhere else… I have terrible news for you.
“The thing was made of cement, so when they notified us, they said, ‘You have four weeks to remove it from the grounds,’” Barrett says. “People think it’s a trailer or something—no, it was concrete. And we had to quickly figure out a way to get a contractor to demolish it.”
Yes, the pepper has been reduced to a lumpy pile of rubble and debris.
As the 2026 Minnesota State Fair draws closer, people have been reaching out via the Big Pepper Facebook to learn what’s going on. Barrett and his family members have had to tell them: Sorry, but the pepper is no more.
“Every day, there’s people who are like, ‘This is our tradition, we stop here and get fried ravioli every year,’” Barrett says. “It wasn’t just something for our family—it was a part of the fair for a lot of people.”
