Food and Fun in Fargo

Fargo, North Dakota

Thursday June 9, 2022 – Friday, June 10, 2022

Written December 4, 2024

Traveling from Sioux City, Iowa – This was part of a longer trip that started in Denver, Colorado and ended in Minneapolis, MN. It included: Cheyenne, Wyoming, Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, Wall, South Dakota, Omaha, Nebraska, Sioux City, Iowa, Fargo, North Dakota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

What are we going to do in North Dakota in less than a day?

North Dakota was one of the states I was most hesitant to visit. It’s not that I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t familiar enough with the state to know where to aim for or what to do when I got there. As I kept shuffling through trip ideas and arranging how we could cover more cities and states in less trips, I coincidentally began gaming with a man online who lived in Fargo, ND. Eventually we started sharing stories about our lives and one of the stories he told me about was about a barbecue rib festival held annually in Fargo that hosted musical acts. I was intrigued, this could be my “something” to do in North Dakota, plus Fargo is one of the more known cities in ND (if I had to guess it’s because of the movie and television series). In any case, I made a note of the rib fest in Fargo. Years went by and I no longer spoke with the man from Fargo, but I still had that note. Luckily there aren’t too many music festivals with ribs in Fargo, so when I was able to put together a road trip that included North Dakota, I researched and found Happy Harry’s RibFest at the FARGODOME. In fact, our trip dates were solidified around the dates of this festival.

Photo 1: Welcome sign to North Dakota

Photo 2: View from La Quinta hotel room

A Simple Evening in Fargo

We crossed into North Dakota around 5:30PM and headed directly to our hotel which was a La Quinta Inn & Suites that was near the medical center in Fargo. About an hour later we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. At this time of day on a Thursday evening, there was lots of open parking spots. We parked a few rows back from the entrance, rolled our suitcases to the check in desk and went upstairs to our room. By 7:00PM we were sitting at a table at Sickies Garage Burgers & Brews.

Sickies seems to be a small hamburger and beer restaurant chain that started in Fargo about 10 years ago. The atmosphere was lively. There was music playing, and several televisions mounted on the walls that showed a variety of sporting events throughout the different areas of the establishment. We were seated somewhat close to the bar so we could watch the Minnesota Twins baseball game. The wall decorations reminded me of an Applebee’s but with more of a sports theme, for instance there was a hubcap on the wall as well as a deer head. Although there were lots of options for burgers that we wanted to try, we both decided to keep it simple and chose the “Garage” burger with fries. We were both very happy with our decision!

No big night life activities for us, after dinner. It was back to the hotel for a quiet night. Now, we could have gone to the Ribfest for dinner and music, but the plan was to check out of the hotel in the morning, have barbecue for lunch, then shop for souvenirs afterwards. It was nice to have a bit of quiet time.

Photo 1: the front of Sickie's Garage menu

Photos 2: inside Sickie's Garage

Happy Harry’s RibFest at the FARGODOME

Finding the FARGODOME was easy, I couldn’t believe how big the parking area was or how many cars were already at the RibFest. We might have walked a quarter of a mile to get to the cooking area. It wasn’t crazy crowded, but there were enough people to overwhelm me. The bad thing about attending the Ribfest for only one meal on only one of the four days is that you don’t really get to sample the food from the different vendors. Unless of course maybe you can make a full day of it and eat a lot!  Or, if you had a group of people maybe you could divide and conquer the lines and set up a personal table buffet to try a little bit of everything. We weren’t familiar with any of the vendors, so we walked to the opposite end of the entrance, read through the menus and evaluated how long the lines were for each.  We stopped at the last two vendors in the row which were Carolina Rib King from South Carolina; and Aussom Aussie Barbecue from Australia. Aussom was the last vendor in the row.

We went with Carolina Rib King and decided on two combinations one that included ribs and pulled pork, the other, brisket and chicken. Both had the same sides, coleslaw and corn bread. One of the things we strive for when we try a new restaurant, is to figure out a way to try as many items on the menu as possible, especially if it is a place that we might not get back to for one reason or another. Of course, within reason. Some leftovers are ok but traveling with a lot of messy perishables is something I try to avoid.

Once we got our food, we needed to find somewhere to sit. Now, I was scoping this out while my partner was picking up the food, and I saw tents across the parking lot with tables, but also some tables were scattered closer to the vendors and very near to the stage area. I chose one of those tables. There was no one on stage in the afternoon, but it was nice to see the layout.

The table in the open was not exactly my brightest idea because the gusts of wind were fierce, I was taking things out of my purse to try to secure the different containers on the table. Even the soda cans were in jeopardy, and let’s not discuss the flying napkins, and my hair flying all over the place, it was comical! We spent about an hour in total at RibFest before walking back to the car.

One of the perks of going to the RibFest during the lunch hours is that parking is free. For the concert events at night, parking is $5, at least it was in 2022. Another is that the barbecue vendors provide sides for free if you purchase from them. If you can make a weekend in Fargo during the RibFest event, you could see a different musical act each night and try the different vendors.

Photo 1: Sign outside the entrance of Happy Harry's RibFest

Photo 2: a long view of the layout of the RibFest (that's the table I was talking about above)

Photo 3: Carolina Rib King menu for the festival

Magnets and T-shirts!

Back in the car, it was time to find a souvenir shop for our magnets and t-shirts. This proved to be a challenge. We’ve run into this before on our visit to Flagstaff, AZ, in fact it is very similar. Flagstaff seemed to promote the local sports teams, Fargo the same. Fargo also seemed to promote things with numbers, “701” on them. We also noticed this at Mount Rushmore (see SD blog post), but it was a different 3-digit number on souvenirs.

Now we need to think outside the box, where can we stop to get souvenirs? The airport (Fargo Hector International Airport) shows a gift shop, and it’s 5 minutes from the FARGODOME. Off to the airport we go! It really was a quick ride to the airport; parking was a breeze. The area was quiet, maybe because it was midafternoon on a Friday. The Fargo airport gift shop was great! It was everything I’d want to see in a souvenir shop. Lots of t-shirts, magnets, and keychains with different styles but so many related to Fargo or North Dakota. What took us the longest was parting with things we wanted, like a buffalo stuffed animal. There was just no way I was fitting that into my luggage! So glad we went to the airport first.

Fargo Hector International Airport

Next stop on this road trip – Minneapolis, MN.

Things I learned from planning this trip: North Dakota isn’t exactly easy to get to from southern New York.

Things I learned from attending this trip: I don’t think a one-night stop in a city is cutting it anymore. Especially when we arrive early evening. Perhaps 2-3 days would be a good length of time, travel around the area to nearby towns to see more scenery and buildings. Airports are a good location for souvenirs!

Things I keep in mind when organizing a trip for myself: Come Back for More – more ribs! Seriously, I don’t know how my stomach would handle it, but it would be nice to be able to sample more than one place during the festival. Dedicating a day to see Bonanzaville this would be something I’d like to check out and that would probably cover my wish to see something historic in each state. I missed that goal in this visit to Fargo, ND.

Some information, such as baseball game information and directions were sought by using ChatGPT or Perplexity.

​©2024 Theri’s Travel Tales