Planning is well underway for the third annual Taste of Uptowne Olds, which takes place Sept. 20, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.During the event, restaurants/food establishments in the Uptowne area provide free samples of their food – some in booths or tents in Centennial Park, others in their place of business.People are encouraged to buy passports for $10 each and visit each of those food-related businesses. As they do, a stamp or sticker will be placed on their passport, signifying they've been to that establishment. By going to each of the participating food establishments, customers can qualify for great prize draws.Each passport has a map and a list of all the participating businesses, to make it easier for people to know where to go to get the stamps or stickers.As of Wednesday, nine of 14 restaurants/food establishments in the Uptowne area had expressed interest in participating this year; about on par with last year when eight participated. There's still time for more businesses to sign up. The deadline to do so is the end of this week.Uptowne Olds co-ordinator Deb Aitken is hopeful more food-related businesses in the area will get involved.“We've been sitting at eight and nine each year, so if we got up to 10 that would be great,” she says.Passports will be available for sale at participating businesses around the beginning of September as well as during Community Information Night, which takes place Sept. 4 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at the Sportsplex.The borders of Uptowne Olds are 49, 50 and 51 avenues from Highway 27 to 54 Street.Aitken says a goal of A Taste of Uptowne Olds is to encourage people to go into food-related businesses they may have not gone into before. She says that goal has been achieved in many places.“People come in and say, ‘wow, I've never been in here before and I'm going to come (in again),'” she says.Aitken says the popular people mover will be back too.“It worked really well last year. People really enjoyed being able to jump on and get back to the Harvest Festival in Centennial Park,” she says. “It just does a loop, starting at Centennial Park, going around (to the participating food establishments) and back to Centennial Park, so people can get around easily.”
