Summary: Local independent restaurants served up their signature dishes and local artists practiced their craft during the third annual Artfully Delicious.
It was a celebration of local cuisine and art as Main Street Wooster and the Wayne Center for the Arts teamed up to present the third annual Artfully Delicious on July 1 on the Square in downtown Wooster.
Nearly 1500 community members flocked to downtown Wooster as local independent restaurants served up their signature dishes and local artists practiced their craft in an event that in just three short years has already become a local favorite.
Since it premiered in 2009 with a handful of local culinary and fine artists, this popular event has evolved in to a showcase of some of the top local restaurants and all downtown Wooster has to offer.
For Wayne Center for the Arts Executive Director Robb Hyde, Artfully Delicious is all about the arts – the culinary, fine and performing arts – and help promote the things that are unique about Wooster.
That includes the diverse offerings available from locally owned restaurants.
Throughout the evening, a steady stream of visitors made their way from tent to tent sampling some of the finest cuisine Wooster has to offer from 14 different independently owned area restaurants including the Bake Haus, C.W. Burgersteins, City Square Steakhouse, Melvins Brick Oven, Muddy Waters Café & Grille, The Granary at Pine Tree Barn, the Olde Jaol, Jakes, Omahoma Bobs BBQ, South Market Bistro, Spoon Market and Deli, TJs Restaurant, Tulipan Hungarian Pastry and Coffee Shop and Zen Restaurant and Lounge.
Beverages of all kinds were also available courtesy of Troutman Vineyards, SoMar Wine Cellars and Bowman Beverage.
According to Main Street Wooster Executive Director Sandra Hull one of the major draws for Artfully Delicious was the opportunity for local residents to try out some of the restaurants they hadnt yet had the opportunity to visit, including some of the newer downtown eateries such as Spoon Market, Zen and the Bake Haus.
The celebration of local cuisine produced by talented Wooster chefs was so successful that most of the restaurants were forced to scramble back to their kitchens to prepare additional food to accommodate the high demand.
Visitors also had the opportunity to learn the secrets of one of the talented chefs from Broken Rocks Café who shared tips on making the perfect loaf of bread in the demonstration kitchen inside the Todays Kitchen store on the Square.
But Artfully Delicious was as much a celebration of the arts as it was of food.
As patrons strolled through the downtown streets, the sounds of the Upriver band and their eclectic mix of Celtic, bluegrass, folk and Appalachian Mountain music could be heard throughout downtown.
Even a flash mob of over 50 dancers materialized out of nowhere to perform to the Gloria Estefan favorite Conga before disappearing once more into the crowd.
Visitors also had the opportunity to watch a member of the Wooster Potters Guild at work demonstrating the pottery wheel while the youngest Artfully Delicious patrons visited the Wayne Center for the Arts make it take it craft area to make their own wearable art in the form of an ice cream cone necklace.
For Hull, the unique mix of art and food makes Artfully Delicious a very special event.
This is a delicious evening for the independent restaurants and its an incredibly artful evening for the Wayne Center for the Arts and as a result of that both organizations benefit and the community gets to utilize our beautiful downtown, said Hull noting that the proceeds from the event are shared by the two organizations.
For more information on Main Street Wooster visit www. mainstreetwooster.org.
More information on the Wayne Center for the Arts can be found at www.wayneartscenter.org.
