Taste of Town Brookhaven

Taste of Town Brookhaven took place on the perfect sunny day in Atlanta. With plentiful parking and a busy but not packed crowd, the day got off to a great start.
First of all, I bought my ticket for $ 15 to benefit «Angels Among Us» Pet Rescue. The only thing that was annoying was that the event promoted the tickets as covering food, beer and wine. I thought that $ 15 was an amazing deal, especially if it covered alcohol as well. Surprise, surprise… it didn’t. I felt a little duped by the organizers – they should clearly state that drinks are separate from the very beginning – but I still think the entrance price was a great deal considering the amount of food I ate.
Some of the food highlights of the day:
— Noche provided their crowd-​pleasing bacon-​wrapped dates (ALWAYS a must when I go eat at that restaurant)
— CineBistro’s peanut butter minipies
— Olde Blind Dog’s Kilkenny Reuben (I had never had this before and now I am HOOKED)
— Publix provided delicious milkshakes and free bottled water (a must in this heat)
— Lucky’s Burger & Brew (fresh burgers made right on the spot)
— Marble Slab Creamery (delicious cool mint flavor)
— Shuck’s Oyster and Wine Bar (tasty lobster mac & cheese)
— YogurtLand (refreshing strawberry lemonade sorbet)
There were a few aspects I wasn’t particularly enthused about, such as:
— I wasn’t interested in the beers or wines they had available, so I stuck to water before heading over to Olde Blind Dog to watch the Hawks game and enjoy some beverages.
— Not many places to sit… and it gets exhausting to stand for hours on end. Luckily, we found a spot in the shade behind the stage where we could sit for a bit.
— It also got pretty hot… would’ve been nice to see a few industrial fans in some areas.
It looked like everyone, especially the children, had a good time. I’m hoping they make this an annual occurrence!
This event was a great way to sample all of the food Brookhaven has to offer!

Taste of Town Brookhaven has a lot of potential, but for me this year it fell short. It is their first year though so hopefully they learned a lot from this year. Value-​wise, I thought $ 30 was way too expensive for this. Even $ 20 in advance was expensive. It did, seemingly, go for a good cause called «Angels Among Us» Pet Rescue. Still though, I thought it was a lot.
Let me start with the pros. All the food there was awesome. The best part about this was that it was great how all the businesses came together and strengthened the community and presented their known dishes. Noche’s bacon-​wrapped dates, There gastropub’s gumbo, Newk’s pimento cheese croissants, Cinebistro’s peanut butter minipies, marble slab ice cream, and flipflop’s sangria were some of my favorites presented. There were many other items there though. Another great thing about the Taste were all the cooking demonstrations. There gastropub did a demonstration about curing meats and pickling vegetables. Now I can try pickling my own veggies! Noche did a guacamole demonstration. Apparently the ingredient that makes their guacamole so great is tomatillo salsa. I missed Smash’s tartare presentation. A third great thing about the taste was that people were able to meet the chefs of the restaurants here. There was a direct chef to community opportunity. The DJ was great too.
However… the space was really cramped. It would have been nice if the booths were spaced out a little more. Maybe utilizing another part of the plaza would have been helpful. Second, they didn’t have nearly enough chairs for the demonstrations. Also, people didn’t seem to stay for longer than an hour or two so they could have doubled up and done the demonstrations again later in the evening. Third, the drink tickets situation was really confusing. Apparently all the wristbands came with a drink ticket, but we got to the FlipFlop wine station and they were asking us for drink tickets that we never got so we purchased some drink tickets. We came back to the FlipFlop booth and they didn’t ask for our tickets anymore? So we spent money on drinks for no reason. Fourth, there was nowhere to sit down. Justin and I just wanted to enjoy some wine and the music and sit down, but there was no shade and nowhere to relax. They can’t help the weather being really hot, but providing space to sit down would have been nice.
I look forward to seeing if they do a Taste of Town Brookhaven again next year and if it improves next year.