It has been nearly a decade since Cincinnati’s last WestFest — a celebration that highlights and gives back to the local community.
Kevin Leidecker, owner-operator of NYPD Pizza, a small, family-run local pizzeria chain, is
working hard to bring back WestFest for the first time in nearly a decade.
“I grew up in the pizza business,” Leidecker recounts, “My mom and dad opened it when I was 10 years old and I ended up running the pizza business full-time after my mother passed away in 2000.”
Since then, he has begun taking strides in the Cheviot community, becoming president of the Cheviot Community Foundation.
“That organization has existed for a very long time under different names, including the CWCA, which was the last organization to actually pull off WestFest in 2016,” he says.
EG: What is WestFest and what drives your enthusiasm for bringing it back?
KL: WestFest was originally proposed in 2001 as a way to bring people to the community to promote the Westside in a positive light featuring restaurants, areas, and retailers that did business on the Westside.
The money raised during WestFest from the purchase of alcohol is donated into the CCF, which is the Cheviot Community Foundation, and that money is used to help projects in the Cheviot area, including parks, the kids’ tot lot at Harvest Home, and in addition to that, throughout the years, we've had multiple chances to work with Cheviot schools. One of the programs we worked with the principal (Tammy Solomon-Gray) to help come up with the funding for them to start this program called “The Leader in Me.” Its job basically was to help promote these kids to kind of be more self-motivated and self-starters and actually really promote a positive direction in their life to take charge of their own destiny, which was a really neat program. Another thing we raise money for is the local food pantries. Unlike a lot of organizations, we work really hard to try and make sure that we stay local. 100% of the proceeds that are brought in on Mugs for Meals, which is our fundraiser that we use to raise money for the food pantries, is donated back to the community into two different food pantries.
EG: What has some of the impact that WestFest had on local businesses?
KL: So one of the things that WestFest has done is really highlight different restaurants that are a unique way to bring everybody together and because it's on the street. So for the 2025 revival of WestFest, we've been able to get several restaurants, including mine, NYPD Pizza, Christine's, (which is a phenomenal restaurant over on Westbourne — and I just absolutely think of that woman as a powerhouse in the restaurant industry). R&R Meats, which is a local family-run butcher shop that's been in business for God knows how long, has expressed interest in a booth and they want to do ribs — and from what I understand, their ribs are fantastic.
[At the time of this interview other participating restaurants include Dirty Dawg Hotdogs, Dine-In Hawaiian, Duebbie Queen’s Ice Cream, Kona Ice, Nacho Average Taco Cart, Payton’s Lemonade Stand, and Servatii.]
EG: How has the process of bringing back WestFest been?
KL: So this year was kind of a make or break for WestFest. We had done WestFest from 2001 to 2016 and it was a really well-run festival that made quite a bit of money, and gave us an opportunity to raise money to put into some pretty big projects around the Cheviot area. I would have loved to have had two years to plan the bring-back of WestFest, but we are on such a tight constraint. One of the things about WestFest is traditionally you started planning the next year's Westfest the day after WestFest ended — this year Westfest is coming together in under about 150 days, which for a festival this size is unheard of.
So far we have been very lucky, all of the pieces that have fallen together with regard to support from the city, support from the police, support from the fire. Some previous WestFest vendors that the minute they heard it's coming back reached out to us. I'm actually really excited that all of the food spots have already been completely filled. We still are working on retail and we're still working on the craft tent section, but we've had a lot of leads and a lot of people really excited to see this thing come back.
EG: Local 12 News suggests that the closure or cancellation of WestFest in 2017 was largely due to a loss in revenue and attendance. What are your plans to prevent that from happening again?
KL: In 2016 we had a down year and we had been a little bit over-generous with some of our donations — we always just kind of thought more money was going to be coming in. In 2016 we had some problems in the crowd, and we had some problems with attendance.
Historically, we never took credit cards and I think one of the huge problems that we had even in 2016. The people planning the event were older, and that generation didn't use credit cards. So we never accepted credit cards — I think that was a huge hit to us. I'm also highly encouraging all of our food vendors to also have the ability to take mobile payments because a very high percentage of younger people walking around simply don't carry cash. It doesn't matter how good something is; if you don't have the ability to take a credit card, you can't sell them anything. Additionally, we never required armbands, and we're going to be requiring people that come through the gates to wear armbands this year. We are working closer with the police department to come up with some security protocols to try and keep the crowd tame. And we're also going to be using music to kind of shape the crowd so that when the crowd gets to be a little bit too thick or too dense and there's just too many people in a very small area, we can kind of cut down the music.
EG: Do you have any other concerns surrounding the revival of WestFest?
KL: This is a make-or-break year for WestFest. We had just enough money in the bank to pull this thing off and community support plus the money we have, some big huge corporate sponsors have made this possible. But at an event this size, people don't realize just how expensive and how much planning goes into an event like this, but we're projected to spend close to $80,000 to put this event together for three days. Not only do we have to make enough money to pay back the $80,000, but the hope is to also raise additional funds so that we can invest in other projects around the Cheviot area.
When you go to these kinds of things, yes, I do understand $5 is just slightly more than you're used to paying for a beer. But please remember that part of that money also pays for the ambiance, the ability to walk around the street, promenade up and down Harrison Avenue and explore the westside with all of its best, bump into people we haven't seen in years. It's a very small price to pay for just a couple bucks more on a beer.
WestFest--June 20, 21, and 22-- is looking for volunteers. As we get closer to the date of WestFest a volunteer form will become available on the website if you’re interested!