Time to end this sad remnant of a formerly great Chicago summer festival.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

There are so many mini-taste all over the city and suburbs,who needs it?

_________________
favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Wrong. It was never great. Always a shit show populated by 400 lb ladies pushing strollers with one hand while hanging onto a turkey drumstick with the other.

_________________

You act like those are bad optics.

_________________
-- source

stick a fork in it

I agree that it's time to put it out of it's misery. When Milwaukee can do big summer festivals better than you it's a wake up call. The small neighborhood fests are better anyways.

_________________

I think it offered a lot when coupled with a free big name concert, fireworks and unique Chicago foods

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Sure you're not thinking of the Renaissance Faire?

...or any public place in Indiana.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

At this point, it's nothing but black people who either don't have $ to spend so they try to hustle some change by playing annoying buckets all day, or it's other blacks that have nothing better to do than fuck up an already congested area with their "Black Lives Matter" crap.

_________________

Yikes.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

_________________

The Taste of Chicago needs more drunk Benny the Bull to stay relevant

_________________

Wow... you should apply at Fox News.

_________________

Rudy Campsiani.

And yes people my post was said in jest.

_________________

While it was not what it once was, I still don't mind it. I don't care for it when it is very hot and packed. Otherwise, it's fine. Those that go to the finer restaurants on a regular basis, or cannot handle the commoner on the street may not care for it. Don't go. It can still be good for us commoners, and the occasional tourist sucker.

where else are you gonna get corn on the cob

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Events like these are only good if you can get small portions for cheap and/or it is all you can eat for a set price. I think the last time I went to this I had like 2 things and a desert for double the price I would have paid to just go to a restaurant.

Also, what spmack said.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I never knew someone could hate black people this much.

Agreed. Add the 4th of July Navy Pier fireworks to the list too.

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I take great pride in the fact that I've never been to the Taste Of Chicago. I have no issue going to the city for certain events, but this has always seemed like a really crowded, uncomfortable waste of time and money.

_________________

Who is the biggest name to play the Taste? I don't recall anybody that wasn't a niche/genre star. The way they do it now, with an XRT band one night, a V103 band another night, a straight up Oldies act another night, etc. is the way to go. If you shoot your wad for one big name act, you run into the Superbowl Halftime conundrum. Too Urban, too old, too hick, too fill-in-the-blank for a broad audience.

Dolphin, do you really miss the fireworks at the Taste, or was that a rule-of-three inclusion? Did you bring your kids down for it? The fireworks were a dangerous logistical nightmare, and were rightfully done away with. The 4th fireworks are spread out to the harbors now.

It is almost all Chicago food. It may be completely all Chicago food. I'm struggling to recall something there that was not local. They also had 5 or 6 trucks out each day. I spent 2 full days there, and came away a greater fan of the event than I was when we started. I talked to hundreds of people, and very few didn't seem to be enjoying themselves, including vendors. It's hokey, but it is the city's yearly party on the front lawn. I fully expected to have stories of lameness and cynicism. I don't.

_________________
I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

I haven't been since I was a whelp the 90s but I would imagine this would be a center of congregation for fat women in capri pants, small shirts, and flip flops.

_________________
Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Very well said Sam.

I went early on Sunday and it was very enjoyable. The key is to try to get there as early as possible to avoid the congestion.

_________________

The Taste is a waste of space. It was ok back in the day, but once you're grown it's just pushing through the crowds in the sweltering heat for overpriced samples. If I want to try a restaurant, I'll go to it.

[quote="Telegram Sam] ...I talked to hundreds of people, and very few didn't seem to be enjoying themselves, including vendors....[/quote]
That really is a great part. Chin wagging with people that are gnawing on something and comparing notes. Maybe I need to go get one of those..., or the vendors themselves. It can be a really fun time. Also, I always find myself locating 1 full ticket item and a bunch of 'original samplers' (no corn thank you) and am quite happy. It's a couple of bucks for something if chosen correctly that's new/unique and usually good. I am usually full and out less than $20.

It is odd in that I work right across the street and never tire of most downtown events. Grant Park and the immediate surroundings are very cool spaces to be. If you have other favorites, cool. I'm not knocking any of them. But if you can get to it and out with some ease it is almost always worth going.

Don't we go through this every year?

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

on a kinda-tangential note, what do you think about the whole concept of protestors going out onto the interstate and blocking traffic for however long?

i understand that the general idea here is to remind regular ol everyday-people that you exist and that you're out there for your cause/s .... but isn't it kind of counterproductive to go fuck up random regular ol everyday people who are just tryin'ta live as opposed to "the power/s that be?" odds are that you're probably messing with 99.5% regular rank-n-file people who you ideally wanna win over to join your cause as opposed to "the system"

in that case you're probably just going to end up convincing a bunch of ppl that you're more akin to someone throwing a tantrum like "NOBODY CAN HAVE NICE THINGS IF I DON'T GET WHAT I WANT" as opposed to doing something poignant and/or subversive in the hopes of making a socially-contagious profound-statement that you're not going to stand for a status quo that has black people ending up in the targets of police far too often.

TLDR = obviously people should have and exercise their right to protest, but does blocking the interstate really do anything other than showing a bunch of regular everyday people that you can wield some kind of bigtime power/s of annoyance? or is the point of this that the masses en masse have allowed this system of police brutality/homicide to exist/continue therefore you're going to take your message to the people by showing them that you can mess their little world up if you feel so inclined?

_________________

ALSO, ON TOPIC...... i think outside of maybe one "casual encounter" circa my collegiate years the taste of chicago was exclusively something that i did with my grandparents a few times. i mean that it wasn't something that was seen as "the thing to do" or "the place to be" to me and my contemporaries circa ages 18-30 because the appeal of "having a day in the city" and "trying a bunch of new and different foods" tends to appeal more to middleaged-and-older demographics.

that said, with the suburbs picking up on this idea en masse over the last ~15-25 years a lot of the novelty of "the taste" has worn off, especially when you have the convenience of not dealing with the whole "of chicago" part cuz you only gotta drive ~5-45mins to a big parking lot in naperville/your-suburb instead of dealing with all the aches and pains of densely-populated civilization. plus as the elderly age further into "sedentary lifestyles" and your middleaged parents start to hit that magic "AARP age" of 65 the whole idea of "dealing with the city" becomes way less attractive, especially in a post-"chiraq" epoch of chicago history. indeed, nowadays the city tends to be some kind of boogieman for grand/parents who are like "why do you have to go there?" after they catch the headlines and decide that they made a brilliant decision to eschew the raw concept of "civilization" by at least 33-66% via ducking to the suburbs a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

_________________