Kennywood’s classic Potato Patch fries got a spine-chilling upgrade this weekend. Five brave souls competed to be the fastest to finish fries topped with scorpions. 

Kennywood held its innagural scorpion eating contest on Saturday night. Darren Partatuzi from Pittsburgh walked away with bragging rights, as well as two season passes and a prize pack. 

Sign-ups were first-come, first-served. When Kennywood asked Partatuzi what made him want to enter the contest, he said, “I saw the sign and thought, why not?”

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Kennywood’s classic Potato Patch fries got a spine-chilling upgrade this weekend. Five brave souls competed to be the fastest to finish fries topped with scorpions. 

(Photo: Kennywood)

The contestants weren’t the only ones eating scorpions. Kennywood said if a Facebook post got 1,500 likes, general manager Ricky Spicuzza would eat a scorpion. He didn’t think it was possible, but after the post got more than 3,300 likes, Spicuzza had to eat his words. The park posted a video of him eating a scorpion, the crunch very audible through a microphone. His review? “Very good.” 

The scorpions were dried, not alive, though that doesn’t make it much less spine-chilling.

It’s not the first time Kennywood has held a contest where participants had to eat critters on top of Potato Patch fries. The past two Halloween seasons, the park hosted a live mealworm eating competition. 

The contest is part of Kennywood’s Phantom Fall Fest. The Halloween-themed festival, which was recently named one of the best in the nation by USA Today, offers family-friendly fun by day and spooky haunts by night. This year, there’s a new haunt called “Detached,” which takes thrill-seekers through the “terrifying toy store of the Puppet Master.”Â