"Come be Greek for a day!" is the invitation on the Saint Demetrios Greek Festival homepage. This year there are actually four of those days, Thursday, November 12, through Sunday, November 15. They come five days after the Halifax Art Festival fills Beach Street on November 7 and 8. For anyone at Latitude Margaritaville, that means two downtown Daytona weekends in a row, both on the Halifax River, and you can walk into either one for free.
Each festival also has a paid option you sign up for ahead of time, and that option shapes the day more than anything you'll find at the gate. At the art festival it's the Collector Circle. At the Greek Festival it's the online pre-order. If you're hosting November guests, or you just want a better Saturday than circling for parking, decide on both now.
The two weekends at a glance
| Halifax Art Festival | Greek Festival | |
|---|---|---|
| Dates | Sat., Nov. 7 and Sun., Nov. 8 | Thu., Nov. 12 through Sun., Nov. 15 |
| Hours | Sat. 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m.–4 p.m. | Thu.–Sat. 11 a.m.–9 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.–6 p.m. |
| Where | Beach Street between Bay St. and Orange Ave., plus the Riverfront Esplanade | Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, 129 N. Halifax Ave. |
| Edition | 64th year | 49th festival |
| The plan-ahead option | Collector Circle membership | Online pre-order with scheduled pickup |
For the Saturday art festival start, the organizer's own site says 10 a.m. The Daytona Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau listing says 9 a.m. If you're counting on an early lap before the crowds, check the time with the festival first.
Weekend one: Halifax Art Festival is bigger than a browse
The Halifax Art Festival bills itself as one of Florida's longest-running juried art festivals and the second-oldest that has run continuously. It has been going since 1962 and draws more than 35,000 people to historic Downtown Daytona Beach every fall. This year brings more than 200 artists. About 150 of them are fine-art exhibitors competing for cash awards, and the rest of the lineup includes craft vendors, juried student art, live music and food and drink.
The cash at stake is a big part of why the fine-art side draws serious work. The festival's awards page lists $21,800 in total prizes:
| Award level | Number of awards | Each |
|---|---|---|
| Best in Show | 1 | $5,000 |
| Second tier | 2 | $1,800 |
| Third tier | 3 | $1,200 |
| Fourth tier | 8 | $700 |
| Fifth tier | 10 | $400 |
That's 24 awards spread across roughly 150 competitors. The ribbons you'll spot on booths along Beach Street that weekend are hard to win.
What the Collector Circle actually buys
The Collector Circle is the festival's membership program, and it works differently from a typical VIP pass. Individual levels run from $125 to $1,250. Each level comes with Patron Dollars, from $60 at the bottom to $380 at the top. Patron Dollars can only be spent on original art. You can't cash them out or spend them on food, drinks or general merchandise.
Membership also includes:
- All-weekend VIP access
- Artist demonstrations and presentations
- Saturday lunch and Sunday brunch
- A gift
- Two invitations to the Saturday awards reception, at the $500 level and above
So the membership only pays off if you plan to buy a piece. Patron Dollars don't help at the kettle corn stand. If a new house still has a bare wall over the sofa, or you've been meaning to buy a guest a thank-you piece, membership turns some of that spending into credit toward art. Members at $500 and up also get the reception, where they see which of those 150 exhibitors wins.
The Esplanade half of the festival
Part of the festival also spills into the Riverfront Esplanade at 179 S. Beach Street. The Esplanade calendar lists the same November 7 and 8 dates. The Esplanade calls itself a waterfront botanical garden and gathering space, with a mile-long trail, benches and swings, a dog park and a splash pad. The festival vendor area there is made up of Riverfront Market vendors with a limited number of spaces. Food trucks and ready-to-eat sellers are handled separately. If your group splits up, the swings and the riverside trail are an easy place to meet back up.
A local resort's 2026 festival guide reports free admission and free public parking in designated areas off Palmetto Avenue. The festival's own pages don't list parking details for attendees, so treat that as a starting point.
Weekend two: Greek Fest goes by the pickup window
The Greek Festival's plan-ahead option is food. The festival's online ordering site takes pre-orders for pickup Thursday through Saturday, November 12 to 14, from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. You choose your food, then pick a day and time.
Line those hours up against the festival's and you'll see where this gets tricky. The festival stays open until 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, but pickup closes at 5 p.m. On Sunday the festival runs until 6 p.m., and there's no pickup window at all. Pre-ordering is a daytime plan. If you want to take dinner home for the household or a group of visitors, collect it by late afternoon on one of the first three days.
Here's what's on the 2026 online menu:
| Dinner platter | Price |
|---|---|
| Combination platter | $25 |
| Chicken riganato | $19 |
| Soutzoukakia | $17 |
| Vegetarian | $15 |
The order page also lists hot foods such as souvlaki, pastitsio, roasted potatoes and dolmades, plus gyros, Greek salads and a family meal.
What staying on the grounds gets you
Pre-ordering gets you dinner. Staying gets you the rest of the festival. The visitors bureau's festival page describes the church's Saint Demetrios Dancers performing folk dances in costume to traditional music such as the Hasapiko, Zeibekiko, Tsamiko, Sirto and Pentozali. It also mentions a coffeehouse, beer and ouzo at the Taverna, wine at riverfront tables, and a marketplace of Greek-themed gifts and jewelry. The festival's entertainment page lists a dance troupe and a live band, and says the 2026 schedule is still to come.
Desserts include baklava, melomakarona, which are honey walnut cookies, kourabiethes, which are almond shortbread cookies, and semolina pudding. A fresh and frozen prepared-foods section lets you take favorites home.
The visitors bureau says admission, parking and the shuttle are all free. The festival site says the free parking and shuttle are at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. When Hometown News covered the 47th festival, it listed that lot at 1014 N. Halifax Ave., with shuttle vans every 10 minutes. That was a previous year, so check with the festival at (386) 252-6012 before you go.
The festival is older than most people assume. According to the church's history page, the first one was held the first weekend of December 1975, after Father George Papadeas arrived that April. It was canceled in 1977 and again in 2020.
Friday, November 13 has two food choices
The Greek Festival's Friday overlaps with the City of Daytona Beach's Food Truck Friday, 5 to 8 p.m. at the Florida Tennis Center, 1 Deuce Court. The city has named five trucks so far and says more may be added. Here the Greek pickup window helps. Collect a platter order before 5 p.m., and the evening is still free for the trucks or for going back to the festival after dark, since it stays open until 9 p.m.
A familiar name now on Beach Street
If you're downtown for the art festival, there's a newer neighbor a short walk from the booths. Mr. Dunderbak's, the Bavarian restaurant, pub and deli, marked 50 years at Volusia Mall in December 2025. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that its owners planned to move it to Beach Street in early 2026. The visitors bureau now lists it at 116 N. Beach St., with German pub dishes, imported beers and wines, and a deli counter with meats, cheeses and imported candies. It's a good way to close out a Saturday of art browsing, and it's a different meal from the gyros you'll have the next weekend.
One downtown stop you'll want to skip this year is the museum. The Museum of Arts & Sciences, now renamed The Cici & Hyatt Brown Museum of Art, Science & History, or The Brown for short, announced it would close to the public on March 29, 2026, with a new building expected in fall 2028.
If you're hosting November visitors and want help planning their weekends, or you're thinking about the bigger picture of life on this stretch of coast, Geri Davis is glad to share what she knows about downtown Daytona and the neighborhoods around it. Ask for your Free Market Snapshot, and she'll put it together with the same local detail.
