Slaton is about to become the official Banana Pudding Capital of Texas.
On May 28, with only five more days left in the state legislative session, the Texas House and Senate sent a resolution to Governor Greg Abbott to await his signature. It gives Slaton this sweet honor for 10 years before it expires.
The Slaton Bakery, with a reputation all over Texas, organized the first Banana Pudding Festival in downtown Slaton in 2023.
“The festival brings – we estimated – about 5,000 people last year to our town. And so, it almost doubles our town size for that Saturday. All the businesses that take part in it around the square see dramatic increases in their business. That means a lot to me because their success is just as important as our success,” Chad Wilson, owner of the Slaton Bakery, told Lubbock Lights.com.
This year’s festival
- The next Texas Banana Pudding Festival is August 30. The event includes games and live music.
- This year’s event offers Church Lady Banana Pudding, strawberry and banana pudding, bourbon banana pudding (with a little bourbon “not a lot”) and a key lime pie for anyone who wants something different.
- A $25 pudding pass gets you all four. The games, foam pit, bounce houses, and live music are free.
Wilson interviewed on KLBK in 2023 ahead of the first festival.
“My grandma, every Sunday after church, would make banana pudding. We’re using the recipe. We’d either eat that at home or at a potluck,” Wilson said on TV.
So, we asked him about it.
“Church ladies are the best cooks in the world in my opinion,” Wilson said.
Money from the Church Lady Pudding goes to the Slaton Snack Sack program.
“They give out food and snacks to all of our school children in a certain grade range to make sure that they have plenty to eat over the weekend. Our city is a fairly low socioeconomic status community. And so, we have quite a few kids in our community that go hungry. So that’s one reason we involve them as well. It’s a really good cause,” Wilson said.
Every non-profit passing out pudding gets $1 per cup.
“We raised about $10,000 a year for local charities,” Wilson said.
Festival started to honor bakery’s centennial
The original festival was to celebrate the Slaton Bakery’s 100th birthday – known for its vanilla wafers, thumbprint cookies and “Guns Up” (Wreck Mmms) cookies. The bakery has been in the same family since the 1940s.
A website called TexasTimeTravel.com said the bakery had to be creative to survive during World War II.
“They introduced sliced hamburger and hot dog buns, the first to do so in Texas and the South Plains,” the website said.
Authored by State Representative Carl Tepper, the House Concurrent Resolution said, “The Banana Pudding Festival serves as a cheerful salute to Slaton’s deep culinary roots, its thriving community spirit, and the longstanding legacy of the Slaton Bakery, and it is fitting that this beloved event be appropriately recognized.”
“It has quickly become a signature event for the city. … The success of the Banana Pudding Festival has helped elevate Slaton’s reputation as a cultural hub and a destination for dessert lovers, and the gathering draws enthusiasts from across Texas and beyond,” the resolution added.
The “Banana Pudding Capital of Texas” designation only makes things better, Wilson said. He’s thankful to Tepper for getting the resolution through the legislature.
“I appreciate his support backing our company, our community and giving West Texas a spot on the map,” Wilson said.
