Eat and drink your way down Electric Avenue at Taste of Bigfork
Bigfork eateries are celebrating the start of summer with Taste of Bigfork this Sunday, April 25. Local chefs will be presenting special menus featuring new creations alongside longtime favorites at this celebration of local food and wine.
“You go venue to venue and get small bites at each place with your wine pairing,” explained Rebekah King with the Bigfork Area Chamber of Commerce. “We bring all the restaurants to downtown so people can just walk through Electric.”
Fifteen Bigfork-area restaurants will participate in this year’s affair including establishments like Laughing Horse Lodge, The Raven and Stone Hill Kitchen and Bar. Eateries who aren’t based downtown will set up shop in or outside of an existing business so patrons can easily eat and drink their way through the downtown corridor.
The Taste of Bigfork falls on the heels of the community cleanup, Clean Your Fork, the day prior, so Bigfork will be looking its best as guests arrive in town for an afternoon of gastronomic entertainment.
Each restaurant’s offerings will be paired with wine provided by Winegardner’s Wines and Flathead Valley musicians will be dispersed throughout the avenue, such as Nick Spears, Dave Von Kleist, and local favorite, Tommy Edwards. In previous years, performers have been asked to donate their time, but this year the event will be providing modest payments to both the musicians and restaurants for their involvement.
“This is our first event where you can go out and see an industry that has potentially been hit hard and see them on the other side,” King said. “Knock on wood, it’s a beautiful spring day to really just enjoy and welcome everyone back to Bigfork for the summer.”
Two hundred tickets will be sold for the event in an effort to reduce the crowd size. Guests are encouraged to begin their trip down Electric with a stop at one of two welcome tables where they can pick up commemorative wine glasses and their ballots for the People’s Choice Award. The award has only been offered for a couple years and past winners include Grille 459 and Great Northern Gourmet.
“The prize is bragging rights — and a very large fork that says People’s Choice Award on it,” King said. “The restaurants really get competitive about it.”
For those who don’t snag a ticket in time, there is still fun to be had at the World’s Greatest Raffle, held at the Garden Bar beginning at 5 p.m. Prizes range from artwork and wine baskets to lodging and personal training gift certificates with proceeds from ticket sales going to the chamber and ImagineIF Library’s campaign for a new Bigfork library.
For more information, call 837-5888.