The organizers behind this year’s successful Best Fest are bringing “Ottoberfest” to Ottawa next month, while continuing to work on the concept for a “canal crawl.” When OBJ spoke with Jessica Traina, or jessicaexploring as she’s known online, about her idea for a vendor-focused festival along the 7.8-kilometre stretch of the Rideau Canal, it was […]
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The organizers behind this year’s successful Best Fest are bringing “Ottoberfest” to Ottawa next month, while continuing to work on the concept for a “canal crawl.”
When OBJ spoke with Jessica Traina, or jessicaexploring as she’s known online, about her idea for a vendor-focused festival along the 7.8-kilometre stretch of the Rideau Canal, it was a flash-in-the-pan idea. Since then, she’s been working to bring the event to life by collaborating with fellow Ottawa content creator Henry Monkhouse, better known online as besteats613, and Nitin Mehra, executive chef at East India Company.
The collaboration follows the trio’s success with Best Fest, a food and drink festival they organized in May. Together, the group is styling themselves as HNJ Experiences.
Since the canal is maintained by Parks Canada and the surrounding greenspace by the National Capital Commission, Traina’s chief concern was red tape. Now, Monkhouse said the group has started conversations with the NCC and “all the right people” to get the ball rolling.
“We have been looking at where we could do it, how much of the canal would be feasible to have in our space. The more we’re looking at it, the less likely that the whole (7.8)-kilometre stretch looks possible,” he said. “We want to be as cooperative as we can with the NCC. It’s early stages yet, so it’s hard to say what the upcoming challenges are.”
With a goal of including more than 100 food, drink and retail vendors, Traina said the process has been slow.
“We expected a lot of steps to be involved. Nothing has been done to this scale on the canal ever. It’s a new concept to all of the bodies involved, but conversations are good. People are really excited about this and you kind of have one shot to get it perfect.”
Still, Traina said the group had to temper its expectations.
“When we got into the depths of it and really looked at the canal crawl in a realistic sense, the process was a lot longer than we anticipated and it wasn’t going to happen for this year,” Traina said. “So we pivoted to make that a next year thing, but we were still left with this fire to do something for the end of 2026.”
And so HNJ Experiences thought of how they could put a new spin on Oktoberfest.
“There are already a few smaller ones in the city and it’s been such a big global event that we thought, ‘Let’s add to it.’ But let’s do it in a space that’s now owned by one spot. All the other Oktoberfest (events) are usually at a certain brewery or restaurant,” Monkhouse said.
Enter the group’s idea for “Ottoberfest.” The one-day event to be held at the Horticulture Building on Sept. 26 will feature at least six food vendors, drinks and Oktoberfest entertainment, such as a stein-holding competition and a Guinness World Record attempt at the longest online video chain toast.
Monkhouse said HNJ Experiences wants Ottoberfest to be inspired by Oktoberfest, but not limited by it.
“We’re trying to make it unique in a way where we want it to be not just German vendors but other food vendors doing twists on German classics and having fun with the theme,” he said. “We’re trying to cover all our bases where none of the food vendors are going to (overlap). You’re not going to have one next to the other selling hot sausages. We want to have pizza and we’re talking to this one vendor who wants to do one with a pretzel crust.”
Ottoberfest will have free admission and food items will cost $15 or less, although it will be a 19+ event.
In bringing Ottoberfest to life, Traina said the group hopes to create a great atmosphere, while standing out against the city’s other food festivals.
“I love Ribfest or PoutineFest as much as the next guy, but a lot of food festivals in Ottawa seem to be around a specific food item. The gap we’re trying to fill is making an event that feels more like a themed party, which I haven’t seen very much of in the city.”
Monkhouse said that each event HNJ Experiences seeks to put on offers exciting challenges.
“It’s a really good opportunity to expand upon what we’re doing. In terms of Best Fest, we only worked with food and drink vendors, but on (Ottoberfest) we’re the ones running the bar. So we then have the new challenges of trying to figure out our staffing, quantities and things like that. But that’s going to be a really good experience to bring into future events,” he said.
Best Fest coming back in 2027
This past May, Monkhouse, Mehra, and Kevin Parent from Killer Buns brought Best Fest to Lansdowne Park, with several local food and drink vendors offering their products at affordable prices to be accessible to a broader community.
Monkhouse said the event was a success, with about 6,000 people attending over the two-day event.
“All the vendors were happy and all seemed to do well. At the end, they were all going, ‘When’s the next one?’ and I thought, ‘I don’t know, I’m still at this one!’” he said.
Monkhouse said he plans to bring the festival back for a second year next spring, but there are a few logistical hurdles.
“The main challenge for this one is figuring out what the space will look like because the Aberdeen Pavilion is closed. Where can this feasibly be? We’ve looked at a ton of spaces but nothing has stuck yet because there aren't a ton of big spaces in the core of the city,” he said.
In addition to location, Monkhouse said weather remains a factor.
“(Weather) changes the whole model of the event because it’s very hard to do a ticketed event if it’s outside. I think it’s also going to be really hard to justify having that because your cost should be lower and the vendor’s risk is higher,” he said.
