From Tribune staff reports
PINSON, Ala. — Heather Lebischak has been praying to what she calls the “butterbean gods.”
The president and CEO of the North Jefferson Chamber of Commerce showed up on “Tribune Unscripted” last week with almost no voice and a week to go before Pinson’s first Butterbean Days. She needed her voice to hold up for 10 minutes. She used them to pitch a two-day street festival that is part homecoming, part roadside attraction for a town that spent two decades building an identity around a humble legume.
“We learned very quickly what a beloved event this was,” Lebischak said. “The outpouring of support from sponsors, from business owners, from people that just wanted to participate has been so overwhelming.”
Rain or shine, Pinson Butterbean Days is scheduled for Friday and Saturday on Main Street, filling the first October weekend that for 20 years belonged to the Alabama Butterbean Festival. That event ended this spring after a public split between city leaders and the former Clay-Pinson Chamber of Commerce. The city then hired the North Jefferson chamber to stand up a successor. Friday’s program runs from 6 p.m. until a fireworks show around 9 p.m., with organizers saying the display may wait until after the local football game. Saturday is 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Heather Lebischak, president and CEO of the North Jefferson Chamber of Commerce joined Brannon Dawkins and Scott Buttram on Tribune Unscripted to talk about the first Butterbeans Days coming up this weekend in Pinson.
While music will be a major part of the weekend, the headliner is not a band. It is Eric “Butterbean” Esch, the Alabama heavyweight whose nickname and the festival’s name have somehow never shared a stage here.
“The highlight of our festival this year … we will also actually have Butterbean himself,” Lebischak said. “He’s going to be there for the entirety of the festival.”
She gave the booking credit to her husband. When she told him the chamber was taking on a butterbean event, his first response was that she needed to get Butterbean.
“I was like, I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll try,” she said. “And here we are, and he’s coming.”
Trussville Tribune publisher Scott Buttram, co-host of the program, said he still cannot believe the boxer had not been invited before.
“When I saw your ad, I’m like, why has this not happening before?” Buttram said. “That was brilliant.”
Lebischak said the chamber commissioned custom lime-green boxing gloves with the new festival logo and Esch’s name on the wrist — a surprise, she noted, unless he happened to be watching. They will be presented on site and used as a photo prop. Esch’s brother, who operates a karate studio in Trussville, is scheduled for demonstrations alongside him.
The rest of the bill is built for a crowd that already knows the weekend and for people who have never set foot in Pinson. Lebischak said more than 100 craft vendors and more than a dozen food trucks are booked, with a few spaces still open depending on the product. Organizers are limiting similar booths on purpose.
“We do try to limit the number of products that are sold — not for us, but for the vendor’s sake — to ensure that they are all profitable,” she said.
Butterbeans will be on the menu. That, Lebischak said, is the question she hears most. Church booths are expected to sell traditional pots of beans. She is more curious about butterbean pizza, described as a cauliflower-style crust made from the beans.
“Butterbeans are a good protein source, and protein is trendy right now,” she said. “So it’s like the original protein source.”
Eric “Butterbean” Esch will be at the festival Friday and Saturday.
Among the food trucks she flagged is Papa Queso’s, a gourmet grilled-cheese vendor the chamber has used at other events. A reptile exhibit will bring snakes and lizards for children to see and learn about. Teal Tales Salon is sponsoring the car show. Live music is scheduled throughout both days, including local acts.
The tone of the festival itself is deliberately corny.
When the chamber inherited the weekend, Lebischak said it needed a brand in six days. Another chamber member firm, Rage Designs, delivered. Merchandise at the chamber booth will include shirts, hats, buttons, pins, stickers, magnets and a butterbean beanie that co-host Brannon Dawkins called “super cute” even in 97-degree weather. Some of the magnets, Lebischak said, are fart-themed.
“It’s a fun name. It’s a hokey festival. So we’re leaning into the hokiness,” she said.
Shirt slogans include “We’ve spilled the beans,” “You’ve been waiting for this” and “Keep calm and blame the butterbeans.”
Sponsors can still buy in, she said, but the print deadline for shirts and banners has passed. Late sponsors will show up on social media and at the event itself.
Lebischak was frank about what she does not know. She has never attended the old festival. People in Pinson have told her Friday night is the hometown turnout — “kind of the homecoming event.” The chamber is treating the weekend as something larger.
“This event is not just for Pinson. It’s a chance for Pinson to show off for the Southeast,” she said. Organizers have bought billboards outside Alabama and are selling “a little southern hospitality in Pinson.”
Street closures, a site map, parking, handicap parking and the entertainment schedule are posted at pinsonbutterbeandays.com and on the festival’s Facebook page. Lebischak said the mayor and City Council have been “the heart behind this festival.”
One planned event, a butterbean cooking contest, was scrapped, but a new idea was ushered in to fill the void, Lebischak said.
“We’re pivoting, because that’s what COVID taught us. We pivot,” she said.
In its place, the chamber is collecting recipes for a free digital “Pinson Butterbean Days” cookbook that will live on the website after the event. Residents can type a recipe or photograph an old card and send it in. Trophies already made for this year will wait until next year, when Lebischak said a contest is expected to be run by local high school culinary programs, including Clay-Chalkville, with proceeds returning to those programs.
“Pull out your grandmother’s cookbook, take a picture and send them to us,” she said.
Buttram used the recipe drive to make a more serious point. Pinson did not pick butterbeans at random. During the Depression, he said, families on and around Mount Pinson grew the crop when other food was scarce.
“When times were hard, that kept a lot of people eating,” Buttram said. “When you tell your kids there are starving people, eat your butterbeans — you can mean it.”
Lebischak said she had not known that history. It fits the pitch she is making now: a jokey weekend with real local roots, a famous nickname on the grounds at last and a town trying to keep a fall ritual from disappearing.
“We are just beyond excited about it,” she said.
