Gearing up for Oyster Bay's big food fest

Too early to be thinking about the fall season?

Not if you're among the organizers of Long Island's largest waterfront event -- the Oyster Festival in the hamlet of Oyster Bay.

Organizers are now in high gear putting the 28th annual event together. The festival generally attracts 100,000 people a day to the two-day event, this year Oct. 15-16. A total of 27 nonprofits, including the Oyster Bay Rotary Club and the Oyster Bay Chamber of Commerce, are on hand to provide oysters, mussels, zeppole, cotton candy and crabcakes from Oyster Bay eateries. The nonprofits and the eateries split profits 50-50, said Paul Rosen, president of the Oyster Bay Charitable Fund, which handles many aspects of the festival. Admission is free.

"We start in November [planning] for the next year," Rosen said.

"We work on it 12 months a year," Rosen said. For Rosen and others, "It's a full-time job that doesn't pay," he said.

Len Rothberg, the festival's event marketing director, thinks the slow economy might even help draw people who don't want to spend money to travel.

"It's a great place to take a family," Rothberg said. "You only pay for what you buy."