Ottawa Lebanese Festival 2026: Live It. Love It. Lebanese Style.

Five days of Lebanese food, music and midway at the St. Elias Cathedral — 36 years running

📍 Get Directions Full Schedule

Saj bread pulled off the dome in front of you, shawarma, a midway, a shisha lounge under the stars, and a main stage running Lebanese music and dance for five straight nights. Walk in free before 5pm; it’s $3 after.

🥙 Lebanese food stations 🎡 Midway rides & games 🎶 Live main stage nightly 🚌 Free parking + shuttle

💡 CAA members get in free on opening day (Wednesday, July 15) — just show your membership card at the gate.

Why Go Schedule Food Attractions Essentials Getting There Tips FAQ

✨ Why This One Still Draws Thousands After 36 Years

The Ottawa Lebanese Festival started in 1990 and has never really needed to reinvent itself. It’s a volunteer-run, non-profit event on the grounds of the St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral near Mooney’s Bay, and the formula has stayed the same: enormous quantities of very good Lebanese food, a main stage that runs music and dance every night, a midway for the kids, and a crowd that treats it like a five-day neighbourhood reunion.

What sets it apart from the average summer food festival is that it isn’t outsourced. The food stations are run by the parish and its volunteers, which is why the saj bread is being pulled off the dome in front of you rather than reheated, and why the dessert café has the range it does. This is a community cooking for a crowd, not a vendor midway with a theme.

And it stays genuinely affordable. Entry is free before 5:00 PM every single day and only $3 after — $10 gets a family of four in. The barrier to just dropping by after work is about as low as a festival gets in this city.

🗓 Dates & Daily Hours

Five days, Wednesday through Sunday. Weekdays are evenings only; the weekend opens at 11:00 AM and runs the full day.

🎶 Main stage lineup: the Jason Anbara Mortgage Broker Stage runs live Lebanese music, dance and entertainment every night. The organizers publish the full 2026 entertainment schedule as a downloadable poster — grab it here or check their Facebook page for set times.

🥙 The Food

This is the reason most people come. The grounds are laid out as a set of themed stations, each with its own specialty — you graze your way across rather than lining up at one truck.

🌿 Vegetarian options 🌱 Vegan & gluten-free falafel 🍹 Beverage station ⛺ Covered family pavilion 🎨 Crafts marketplace

🎡 Beyond the Food

There’s a full evening’s worth of things to do once you’ve eaten, and the grounds have distinct zones for different crowds.

🎠 The Midway. Rides and games for all ages, open 4:00 PM on weekdays and 11:00 AM on weekends. This is where the kids will want to spend the entire budget.

🎤 The Main Stage. Contemporary and traditional Lebanese music, dance and entertainment, running every night of the festival.

🪑 The Patio. An outdoor patio for sitting down with a plate and a drink and watching the festival go by. The relaxed middle ground between the food line and the stage.

💨 The Lounge 19+ — traditional Lebanese shisha with herbal flavours, nightly entertainment, and an open-air lounge atmosphere once the sun goes down.

⛪ Cathedral Tours. Guided tours of the St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral run throughout the festival — weekdays 6:00–10:00 PM, weekends 2:00–10:00 PM. Genuinely worth doing; the Neo-Byzantine interior is something.

🎟 The 50/50 Draw. Half the pot goes to the winner, half supports St. Elias Cathedral programs. Tickets are sold on the grounds and online, and the winning number is called during Sunday’s closing ceremonies.

📋 The Essentials

🚗 Getting There & Parking

The festival takes over the grounds at 750 Ridgewood Avenue, just east of Mooney’s Bay and south of Hog’s Back. Ridgewood is a residential street and on-site parking is limited — the shuttle is genuinely the better plan.

Free parking + shuttle: Park free behind the Canada Post offices or at Brookfield High School. A complimentary shuttle runs every 15 minutes to and from the grounds starting at 4:00 PM, courtesy of Millennium Limousine Service.

Walking-distance lots: The Canadian Labour Congress, the War Amps building, and Riverside United Church all offer parking within walking distance. The festival describes some walking-distance parking as paid, so read the signage before you leave the car.

Transit: Take the O-Train to Canada Post Station and hop the free festival shuttle. OC Transpo’s Travel Planner will map the route door to door.

💡 A Few Things Worth Knowing Before You Go

🕔 The 5:00 PM line is real. Show up at 4:45 on a weekday and you walk in free. Show up at 5:15 and you’re paying $3. Not a fortune either way, but worth knowing.

🚌 Take the shuttle. Ridgewood Ave is a residential street and the neighbourhood fills fast. The Canada Post and Brookfield lots are free, the shuttle runs every 15 minutes from 4 PM, and you skip the entire parking problem.

🍞 Do the saj first. It’s the one thing that has to be eaten hot off the dome, and the line only grows as the evening goes on.

👨‍👩‍👧 Weekends open at 11 AM. If you’re bringing young kids, Saturday or Sunday midday is the calmest window — the midway is running and the evening crowd hasn’t landed yet.

⛪ Take the cathedral tour. Most people eat and leave. The tour is free-flowing, runs into the evening, and the Neo-Byzantine interior is one of the more striking spaces in Ottawa.

❓ Common Questions