State Fair of Texas, 2026 New Food
Located at Granny’s by the Coliseum and Foot Long Corn Dogs on Grand Ave.
Texas summers run past a hundred degrees by June. Someone decided the fix was a soda that started its life on a lemon tree in Italy.
What This Thing Actually Is
Sparkling Limonata, made from sun-ripened Italian lemons, gets mixed with fresh watermelon puree.
Then it’s topped with Italian lemon sorbet and fresh mint, served in a cup with a lemon sugar rim.
A whole ocean sits between the lemon and the fairground, and it still comes out tasting like a Texas summer anyway.
Justin Martinez of Fiesta Enterprises Inc. built it, served at both Granny’s by the Coliseum and Foot Long Corn Dogs on Grand Ave.
The Part That’s Actually Funny
This one is listed as an Every Day Value Item, 10 coupons. Not a showpiece built for one photo.
It’s a drink meant to sell at volume for all 24 days of the run.
Most of this year’s new menu chases spectacle. This one just chases the second cup.
A Texas watermelon and an imported Italian soda settle their differences in the same paper cup. It’s one of dozens of new items rolled out this year, part of a lineup that also produced a record 77 total Big Tex Choice Award entries in 2026.
Why Texas Keeps Doing This
Everything is bigger in Texas, including the distance an ingredient is willing to travel just to end up in a fairground cup.
Plenty of fair drinks stick to whatever’s already sitting in the walk-in cooler down the road. This one imports a soda from Italy and still finds a way to put a Texas watermelon on top of it, because if the heat’s the same everywhere, the fix might as well come from somewhere interesting.
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