Michigan's Most Mind-Bending Retail Spectacle

Lake Orion — Last weekend, I saw a giant pink pig smiling in a chef’s hat and sunglasses with a map of Michigan on its shirt standing in front of a sprawling Tudor-style castle complete with turrets straight off a medieval castle.

The garish porcine inflatable was actually one of the least out-of-place things at the Canterbury Village BBQ and Bacon Festival, one of many festivals hosted year-round by what I believe may be state’s most unusual and amazing commercial center.

This was my first time in Canterbury Village, except for one quick stop at Yates Cider Mill one dreary weekday last winter for a donut with my daughter. That day, I parked on the side parking lot, which was practically deserted.

Today, the front parking lot is jammed and everything is open for the BBQ festival, which costs $5 to get in if you buy tickets ahead of time and $6 at the gate.

Canterbury Village used to be just a Christmas market, with European architecture to sell the experience. But that Germanic authenticity clashes hard with the BBQ festival and the current shops in the village.

My kids and I walk through the entrance to find a crowd watching live wrestling on a full ring underneath a squat, fake turret. The two guys throw arms at each other and bodyslam each other. Even my 5-year-old can tell it’s not real, a small comfort to my perturbed 3-year-old.

While the fighting continued, we walk by Spun Intended (a fiber arts store), All Natural Hippie, Fae Fantasies LLC (a “fantasy based cosplay accessories and trinkets shoppe), and a jewelry and clothes boutique.

That got us to the Market Pavilion, which has a 1980s German carousel running in the center of it and some meager arcade rides to the side. After that, we walk by Joe’s Mancave, which sells neon clocks and the kinds of signs you might find in a garage with drywall and a mounted TV.

In front of Joe’s Mancave is a row of items from The Hot Tub Store, one of which is filled with water and running. According to Facebook, the store has former Red Wing Joe Kocur out to meet people this week.

I’m no hockey fan, so I don’t know what he looks like. But I see no line to meet him as we reach Todd and Katie’s Leather Boutique, which sells hand-made journals. Across the small street are a number of tent vendors for the festival.

On a hill to our left is a monster truck. Rides are $10, a sign says. By the parking lot is an abandoned Ferris wheel with skeletons in it.

Up the hill from the roaring beast with tires taller than the wrestlers is a live musician plucking the strings of an acoustic guitar, but he’s fighting to be heard over the hump-hump-hump of recorded music from somewhere close by.

A child plays alone under four bubble machines on the hill in front of a sign that just says “Bubbles.” Other lawn games are laying unused in the open space with a sign that just says “Games.”

After wending through the Tudor buildings, we find ourselves nearing a clearing with food trucks. The advertising for the largest one, Carolina Rib King, rises two stories into the sky.

There’s a food tent with a bar, tables to eat, and a live DJ overseeing the hump-hump-hump so loud you can barely order. Around the clearing, across from Carolina Rib King, is a circle of smaller, local food trucks sell smoked meat, slushies, and ice cream.

The local food trucks are fantastic. The 3D Eatery truck from Holly has the best customer service. When I dropped my daughter’s corndog on the ground, they gave us another for free.

Poppo’s Barbeque is my favorite smoked meat of the weekend. You can see the smoke coming from the back of the truck. The pork rib tips had gelatinized bones, and the meat was pull-apart soft.

But the food is practically an interlude to the whiplash. We pass a cigar truck to eat our food in picnic tables behind Canterbury Castle by C-pub, which was an Irish-themed pub before it closed.

Gold-plated statues sit behind the looming castle walls. A mother and her son play chess with pieces that are 4 feet high on squares that are too small.

We sit on the front porch of a hair salon to eat the rest of our food, and then we walk back over to Yates Cider Mill. I can’t bring myself to get the kids a donut or ice cream after a corndog.

The wrestling has stopped for now. There is a custom T-shirt store called Graveldinger Graphix in the same building as Wendell Family Farm, which sells candy and jams and knicknacks.

Over that way is Diner 55, which is what it sounds like—an Americana joint with hot dogs and burgers and shakes. Decor is thick on the walls, but not in a cool way.

One of the last businesses we enter is the Spunky Frog, which has clay throwing classes and paint-your-own pottery experiences. It’s a really cool store and something I would love to try.

It’s just so hard to understand such a cute store here alongside everything else. You can spin clay and have it fired while you eat the turkey leg you got 20 yards away from the Village Smokehouse and Bakery.

Unfortunately the pulled pork I get there is too watery, especially compared with the exceptional local stuff I’d already had.

On the way out, signs claim that the large Tudor building to the right is used by Woodside Bible Church, a large non-denominational church with several campuses.

As we leave the parking lot in front of Canterbury Castle, someone stops me to ask if I was here for the wedding.

“No,” I said, after rolling down my window.

“Then keep moving,” he said brusquely.

Apparently this is someone’s special day inside the chambers of this formidable building. I sure hope they can’t hear the monster truck tearing it up in the parking lot or the DJ trying to get the sparse crowds to feel upbeat.

As we leave, the discordant scenes of the day seemed stuck together in my memory only by their proximity, commercial interest, and out-of-place European design.

Maybe the BBQ Festival is really a distraction from Canterbury Village, or maybe it just brings an intensity to the juxtaposition of it all.

There’s something real about it: The beautiful, faux spectacle of everything you’d never expect to see behind the castle walls.