The return of a beloved Bloomington food festival drew large crowds to Kirkwood Avenue over the weekend.
Organizers paused the long-running Taste of Bloomington festival at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Saturday’s event was the first in six years.
“We have never seen Taste of Bloomington like this,” Mayor Kerry Thomson said Saturday. “This is the crowning jewel of townie summer.”
The festival showcases Bloomington’s diverse cuisines.
This year, dozens of local restaurants, breweries and businesses set up along Kirkwood. Venders offered tasting menus of items priced at $5 or less.
Local bands performed on two stages set up at opposite sides of the festival, which was free to attend and closed to vehicles.
Listen: Taste of Bloomington returning after five-year hiatus
Mary Cascio-Rawlings drove up from Lexington, Kentucky with her husband and two kids to Bloomington, where she grew up.
“This is like the perfect recipe with the weather being, what, 69 degrees out right now?” Cascio-Rawlings said.
“I ran into a lot of old friends from back in the day, being a townie. It was nice.”
