{"id":269294,"date":"2026-08-21T05:22:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T05:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/269294\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T05:22:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T05:22:06","slug":"pittston-tomato-festival-kicks-off-as-rain-gives-way-to-a-clear-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/269294\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittston Tomato Festival kicks off as rain gives way to a clear night"},"content":{"rendered":"

PITTSTON, Pa. \u2014 Early-day rain didn’t keep crowds from showing up for the 43rd annual tomato festival in Pittston<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the rain disappeared, the crowds picked up on the first night of the tradition.<\/p>\n

Mike Campenni has been to Tomato Fest since the very first festival. No matter what year, the things that keep him coming back:<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything, the community, the food, you can’t shake a stick without knowing somebody, I’ve already had a couple of people smiling at me as I walk by,\u201d says Campenni.<\/p>\n

Ed Lahart of Pittston has been coming for 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a nice place to be; the bands are great, so it’s entertainment, people know each other, tradition, really,\u201d says Lahart.<\/p>\n

The Tomato Fest isn’t just a tradition for some families; it’s also a time some businesses look forward to every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are wonderful here, our neighbors are excellent here on all sides of us, the people who run the event are very coordinated and organized, and it’s a real pleasure to be here,\u201d says TJ Cusumano of Cusumano Restaurant.<\/p>\n

Businesses say they keep coming back because the festival helps get their name out.<\/p>\n

For Rikasa, this marks five years at the festival, and the restaurant’s location is extremely local.<\/p>\n


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\u201cOur restaurant is right across the street so it’s very convenient for us, the rooftop is also open so it’s exciting for us to be over there and also be over here\u201d says Jules Scappaticci of Rikasa.<\/p>\n

Organizers say they’re happy to see guests come out despite the rain early in the day to support the festival’s many businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want our vendors to do well. While we’ve grown the event, we’ve not really grown the volume of vendors because we want the vendors to know that when they come to the Pittston festival, they’re important to us,\u201d says Mayor Michael Lombardo of Pittston.<\/p>\n

The Pittston Tomato Festival will resume Friday at 3 pm and run through Sunday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSTON, Pa. \u2014 Early-day rain didn’t keep crowds from showing up for the 43rd annual tomato festival in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-269294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}