$90 Opens a 300-Wine Tasting. The Gallery Pours Are Free.

PROVINCETOWN · THURSDAY–SUNDAY, NOV. 5–8

Free gallery pours Friday, a $90 Grand Tasting Saturday, pie judging Sunday, and the Lobster Pot's last day of 2026 in the middle of it.

5 min read · A Celebrate Lower Cape spotlight

Lay the posted prices side by side and they read like the board outside a raw bar: $90, $130, $150. Then the column runs out of numbers. Two afternoons of the weekend, a Friday of gallery pours and a Sunday of pie, are listed as free.

The Provincetown Food & Wine Festival runs Thursday through Sunday, Nov. 5–8, and its ticketing page calls this its sixth year. The schedule is long and runs from sunset cocktails to a leather dance party, so the useful question is which part of it fits you. The weekend, sorted, goes like this.

One ticket, more than 300 wines listed

If you came for the wine, Saturday is your day. The Grand Tasting at Town Hall runs Saturday, Nov. 7, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial Street. General admission is listed at $90 on TicketLeap, plus a service fee you'll see at checkout. It's 21 and over, and the ticket includes an etched glass you keep.

The festival's own page counts "over 300 wines" from dozens of vendors and distributors. That's the size of the room, not a quota: nobody works through all of them in three hours, and the same page tells you to pace yourself. Food comes from Relish, and the Outer Cape Chorale is listed for a short performance.

Free, if you register first

If you'd rather walk, take Friday. The Gallery Sip & Stroll runs Friday, Nov. 6, from 1 to 4 p.m., with a spotlight wine poured at each participating gallery for those 21 and over. It costs nothing. The ticketing page still asks you to register, "so we have a heads up on how much wine to serve," which is the most honest line on the schedule.

Cape Cod 5 sponsors the stroll, and Mayflower Trolley runs a loop between stops, so you can start in the East End or at Whaler's Wharf and let the trolley do the rest. Friday also brings the Post Office Café's 8 p.m. drag pageant, where somebody gets crowned "Miss Decanter."

If you want a table, the dinners are where the bigger numbers live. The festival lists a five-course Italian pairing dinner at Ciro & Sal's on Thursday at $130 plus tax and service, booked through the restaurant's own reservations. Friday's dinner at Liz's Café is listed at $150, gratuity included, with Round Pond Winery of Napa pouring, by phone at 508-413-9131.

Same Saturday, 61 numbers up Commercial

The festival page leaves out one scheduling problem. The Grand Tasting is at 260 Commercial Street. At 321 Commercial Street, the Lobster Pot's own homepage lists Saturday, Nov. 7, as its "Last Day of Service for 2026."

It's the end of a season, not a farewell, and the site's wording is about 2026 only. The McNulty family took over operations in 1979, according to the restaurant's history page, and the site still lists daily hours from 11:30 a.m. with no reservations taken. CLC readers met the family's faster sibling, Lobster Pot Express on Ryder Street Extension, in our June map of bench meals.

So if Saturday has a Lobster Pot stop in it, the math is simple. Lunch at 11:30, Town Hall at 1. Doing it the other way round means walking up Commercial Street after three hours of tasting and hoping the line is short on its last day of 2026.

Two pies per baker

If you came for dessert, Sunday is the gentlest day of the four. Pie Fest runs Sunday, Nov. 8, from noon to 2 p.m. at the Commons, 46 Bradford Street, and the festival lists it as complimentary. Every baker brings two pies, one for the judges and one for the auction. The judges this year are Kelly Fields, Brad Drummond, and Nick Medvescek.

That last name is the one to know. At last year's Pie Fest, the Provincetown Independent reported that Nicholas Medvescek took first place with a pie whose pastry he described as "flakier than your ex and richer than your second husband," and that the event raised $10,000 for the Commons, a nonprofit with artists' studios and co-working space. This year the Commons lists him among the judges, and his name also appears on its list of featured bakers. Westport Rivers is pouring, and bakers have until Monday, Nov. 2, to sign up.

If you're driving up from Harwich or Orleans and want a shorter Sunday, Truro Vineyards holds a barrel tasting at 2 p.m. with winemaker Jacques Van Der Vyver, booked through Tock. The Boatslip's tea dance, 4 to 7 p.m., is billed as the last one of the season.

Pick your column, then book it. Buy the Grand Tasting ticket on TicketLeap, register for Friday even though it's free, and reserve Ciro & Sal's through the restaurant's own site. If the Lobster Pot is on your list, be at 321 Commercial Street by 11:30 a.m. Saturday, because the site says it doesn't take reservations, and Nov. 7 is its last day of service for 2026.

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