Holy Smoke! Gotta love this concert & pizza event

Early on a summer evening, high atop a hill on Faribault’s eastern edge, folks gather in a church backyard for delicious wood-fired pizza, music and conversation. This is Holy Smoke, an outreach of Christ Lutheran Church that not only feeds the community and features a free concert, but also raises funds for charitable causes. Proceeds from this year’s pizza sales go to Rice County Habitat for Humanity, Believet Canine Service Partners and St. Vincent DePaul.

In its seventh year, the second Wednesday of the month summer event draws quite a crowd of all ages. Adults visit and tap their feet to the music while enjoying pizza. Kids run, climb playground equipment and play yard games. Holy Smoke is family-friendly, welcoming and kicked back.

On the other side of the church, a crew slides pizzas, assembled by volunteers in the fellowship hall, into and out of a brick oven, where temps flame to 700 degrees-plus. In the narthex, others take pizza orders, $25 for a whole or $7 for a quarter. Varieties vary, enough to please any palate. My favorite: BBQ beef brisket. I savor the smokey flavor of the brisket. Arrive early with lawn chairs or blankets. Church doors open at 5 p.m., close at 8:30 pm. The wait for pizza can sometimes be long. But it’s worth the wait for the tasty, handcrafted, hand-delivered pizza. Occasionally the pizza sells out.

While the food is a draw, so are the performances of area musicians. The eclectic music of Northfield-based Relativity will be featured at the final 2023 Holy Smoke on Wednesday, August 9. That band includes popular fiddle and mandolin player Mike Hildebrandt, an inductee into the Minnesota Rock & Country Music Hall of Fame.

Music. Wood-fired pizza. A sense of community. All three combine to make Holy Smoke a must-do summer event, just off Minnesota State Highway 60 at the church high atop the hill on Faribault’s east side. 