BRUNSWICK, Maine — The Taste of Brunswick, Brunswick Downtown Association’s signature event, has been postponed because too few local restaurants signed up.
Originally scheduled for Saturday, June 22, the event is likely to be held instead sometime in early fall, according to Patti Spencer-Yost, BDA’s marketing coordinator.
“We didn’t have as much participation from restaurants as usual,” she said. “We had 17 last fall, but were only able to get 10 on board for June.”
The event, which gathers the town’s eateries together under tents on the Mall, usually draws 3,000-4,000 people to sample food from each. Traditionally held in autumn, BDA’s organizers last year decided to move it to summer to capture better weather and summer crowds.
But June is a wedding month, and some restaurateurs balked at the gap between what they’d make hosting or catering a wedding and moving their operations outdoors and under a tent.
“We understand it’s hard for restaurants to leave their places of business on a June Saturday and go to the Mall,” Spencer-Yost said. “We were really hesitant to postpone, since we’d already advertised it. But we just felt that there weren’t enough [vendors] to justify keeping it as scheduled.”
The BDA is a coalition of village-area retailers that organizes and sponsors special events to promote all of the town’s businesses. Board members will consider a new date for the Taste of Brunswick event during their business meeting next week.