Downtown Ann Arbor is the most competitive culinary neighborhood in an extremely robust culinary town, but even it is not immune from competition from food delivery services, big box stores and fast food. That is why Main Street Ann Arbor hosts the Taste of Ann Arbor, to bring people downtown to both remind them about old favorites and give people a peak into places they didn’t know had opened or haven’t gotten around to trying yet. And judging by how slammed Main Street was on June 1, it was a massive success.
“I find it really joyous to see everybody get outside, especially when the weather turns really good. I look forward to when they close down the streets and have people out all day long. Over the winter it can get kind of dreary, so it’s nice to see everybody outside,” Vivian Griffin, a student at the University of Michigan, said. “Students definitely make our way to this part of downtown as often as we should. So I think events like this definitely encourage us to get over to the area.”
How it works
Taste of Ann Arbor is pretty straightforward. They close the most prominent few blocks of the city’s main drag, from the courthouse to William Street, and fill the street with tents. Each one is for a different restaurant – and once you collect a series of paper tokens for $1 a piece on Liberty Street, you can pay for sampler portions from each of the restaurants.
“Ann Arbor has a bounty of good food, and often it can feel overwhelming to figure out where I want to dine. This gives me an opportunity to try a lot of things,” Missy Stults, the director of the city of Ann Arbor’s Department of Sustainability, said.
Not everything in downtown’s restaurants cost that much. But a lot of it does – and this provides a fun way to get a bit of what you are missing, or what you might spring for the next time you have a celebration worth coming downtown for.
“I think downtown is great. I grew up in a suburb so I love seeing people coming together for events like this,” Kaleb Stephens, who is visiting from Los Angeles, said. “I got a cookie from Cinnaholic, and that’s definitely the best.”…