Taste of Atlanta

Atlanta is a city that loves its festivals, and for good reason.  We have a ton of parks, we have great weather nearly year round, and we have an active population that likes to get out and socialize.  One of the festivals that is growing in popularity each year focuses on the really important things that bring Americans together, food.  Taste of Atlanta is a three day long festival that highlights some of the best restaurants in the city, and gives you a chance to mingle with thousands of other food lovers at the same time. 

Taste of Atlanta is an annual event that occurs in October at Tech Square located adjacent to the campus of Georgia Tech in Midtown.  While there is plenty of parking available around Midtown, the festival is conveniently located between the North Avenue and Midtown MARTA stations.  The participating restaurants are divided along two streets, and are laid out according to the neighborhood they are at in town.  There are sections dedicated to Midtown, Buckhead, Decatur, and several other famous foodie neighborhoods throughout Atlanta.  Once inside each person gets 10 tasting "points" used to buy food samples from each of the more than 90 restaurants there.  Each person gets a wrist band with an RFID code on the band that each food station scans to collect their payment.  Food samples are generally between 2-3 points, so you can expect to get between 3-4 food samples off what comes with your entrance, but don't worry, they are happy to sell you more tasting tickets.  Each year we discover new favorites that we are excited to try on our own.  In the past we have discovered local gems like Der Biergarten, Southern Art, and Sway.  This year we found some new favorites like The Barrelhouse, Smoke Ring, and Southern Bistro.  It is worth the trip to Taste of Atlanta just to line up the next ten date nights you will have, and to know you will enjoy where you are going to eat. Not feeling like a bunch of heavy food, use all of your points on sweets like Daddy O'Brien's Ice Cream Pub with their alcohol infused ice creams.

Guests can purchase two types of tickets, a general admission pass or a VIP pass.  I would like to stress to everyone that attends should buy the VIP ticket.  While the VIP ticket does not come with any additional tasting points for the vendors in the streets, it does come with its own dedicated VIP section which includes unlimited food and drinks from the vendors inside.  Inside the VIP area, local beer store Hop City provided more than 100 types of beer all for the drinking, Guinness had a stand pouring cool pints of beer, and restaurants were serving unlimited amounts of food.  While the VIP ticket price sounds steep at $75, compared with the $25 general admission ticket, once you factor in how quickly those ten taste points get burned through at the restaurants, and how many times you would need to buy more points for food and drinks, you will easily go through that much if you want to enjoy your time in general admission.  We have tried both types of tickets before, and I can promise we will never do the general admission again.

Within one minute of entering the gate one of the stands was giving out free loaves of Nature's Own bread.  Thinking nothing of it, I just took the loaf of bread the man was handing out (he literally had hundreds of loaves stacked up behind him), it seemed normal to me.  I did get strange looks for the rest of the day from people who thought I had brought my own bread to a food festival. One drunk guy wandered up to me and asked, "What the hell is that?"  I told him the truth, "A loaf of bread obviously."  We also picked up multiple coupons for visits to restaurants we liked, and watched several of the cooking demonstrations and contests that occurred on the stages scattered throughout the event.

If you are looking for a fun way to spend a weekend you should always look for what festivals are coming to your town.  Atlanta has some awesome ones every year like the Dogwood Festival, Inman Park Festival, Sweetwater 420 Fest, and many more.  If you are looking for something fun to do in October, and you wake up with an empty stomach, spend a day or three checking out the top restaurants in town and get a chance to hang out in an awesome crowd. Be careful though, you do run the risk of eating so much all you do is groan the whole time someone is talking to you.

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