Flavors on the Avenue street festival returns this weekend!

Over 100 vendors, 24 restaurants, live music, and free family fun to highlight event.

by CT Liotta

The East Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District will hold their annual Flavors on the Avenue street festival this Sunday, April 29, 2018, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The city’s first big restaurant festival of the season will feature five blocks of street food, seasonal sips, craft beer, live music, sidewalk sales and free family fun. The festival runs along East Passyunk Avenue from Broad to Dickinson streets.  

Pam Zenzola, Executive Director of the East Passyunk Avenue BID, is excited about the changes from years past. “We listened to comments from last year. This year, we are a pay-as-you-go event. No tickets needed. If one person wants a taste of sushi at Izumi, someone else wants something from Cantina and yet another something sweet, perhaps from Vanilya, they may stop along the way and buy whatever they want.”

Flavors will also offer free family-friendly activities including a kids art and activity zone by Lume Creative Learning Studios at the Singing Fountain, a typewriter station at Dickinson, moon bounce and giant inflatable slide at the East Passyunk Gateway, kids’ crafts with Frame Fatale, and outdoor games for kids and adults of all ages. In addition, many boutiques and businesses along East Passyunk will host workshops, activities and family fun inside their spaces.

For those twenty-one and older, Founders Brewing Co. will offer a new tasting tent with free samples at East Passyunk Ave. & Mifflin St. “Once you have a little taste, you will want to purchase a beer at many establishments on the Avenue,” added Zenzola. “A map will guide you to the locations with Founders on their drink menu.”

While East Passyunk has the top eats in the city–and a thriving makers’ scene–the Avenue also boasts some of the city’s hottest new retail and fashion boutiques. Look for sidewalk sales, spring fashions, gifts, greenery and more along the strip.

Flavors on the Avenue is inspired by the BID’s former Flavors fundraiser held under a tent each year. In 2017, the event went out from under the tent and into the street. “We had no idea expanding it to a 5 block festival would turn out so well. The guesstimate was it would go from 2,500 people to about 6,000. By the time the event was over, 11,000 people visited our avenue! To say we were happy is an understatement,” said Zenzola.