“Feast on Fourth” is an opportunity to participate in a culinary adventure while supporting local businesses along Fourth Street S.W. Jennifer Rempel, Fourth Street Business Improvement Area (BIA) executive director, says the four-day event is a chance to re-introduce customers to an area hosting a vibrant restaurant scene. “It gets new faces in the door, and that’s the whole point: you come discover the street,” she said. “The reason we run it from Wednesday to Sunday is you can’t eat everything in one day, so we invite people to come back and try (something different) each day.” Rempel says the feast is in its third year. It happens in the spring and fall, and local restaurants offer special menu items at affordable prices, encouraging visitors to explore the street and try more than one item at one location. “There’s something for everyone,” she said. “We have family-friendly slices of pizza, we have pancakes at The Gardens by Marlow, we’ve got Urban Butcher doing charcuterie boards to go. We even have this restaurant Vin Room doing a surf and turf for $10.” Rempel says retail businesses are also included this fall. “This is the first time we’ve included retailers in our offering,” she said. “There’s some stores having $10 racks in their retail locations, there’s discounts on massage, there’s discounts on tattoo removal and there’s all sorts of offerings from retail to services to even some spa services.” Anna Ho operates Article Apparels, specializing in women’s consignment, and wasn’t sure about being part of the feast at first. “But if there’s any chance to promote the businesses and just the area in general, we are always on board, and we loved it, so we’re very grateful to be a part of this year,” she said. “We are doing a $10 clothing rack where all proceeds are actually going to be donated to AARCS. We’ve worked with AARCS before—we’re huge dog lovers at the shop.” Bernard Tarun runs Abbey’s Creations, Mission location, and this is his sixth time participating in the feast, offering a four-flavour ice cream tasting flight for customers. He’s a fan of the event. “It brings a lot of traffic to our shop, so it really showcases the services, the ice cream flavours,” he said. “Especially for the challenges small businesses are facing right now, what the BIA is doing really helps the community, really helps the businesses in the area survive this volatile economy that we’re facing right now.” Blowers and Grafton restaurant has taken part in the festival, but this is chef Kai Salimaki’s first time cooking for it, and he chose a lobster dish for customers to taste. “We specialize in Atlantic East Coast fare, so everything Nova Scotian and around,” he said. “So for Feast on Fourth, we are highlighting an Atlantic lobster and corn fritter, and it is actually encompassing our lobster season promotion going on right now, so we have lots of lobster on the menu.” Feast on Fourth takes place Sept. 23 to 27. You can learn more about it here at https://www.4streetcalgary.com/feaston4th.
