I "Tasted Durham," and it tasted just like chicken!

So I didn't make it out to "Taste of Research Triangle Park at Durham" for this year's festival. Too busy getting caught up on things around the house and the like. Besides, if we wanted Cold Stone Creamery or Johnny Carino's food, we'd drive to Southpoint -- and if we wanted to eat at George's Garage, we'd just hop on our bikes and ride over to Ninth Street.

Of course, the local press took predictable sides on it. The Herald-Sun focused on the move from Brightleaf Square in their second paragraph, and printed some positive opinions from several attendees, while noting that at least one attendee felt it "would be more fitting for it to be in downtown Durham or somewhere closer downtown." The N&O, for its part, stated that "few seemed to notice" the move, and that one Durham resident in attendance noted "it didn't make any difference to me that it was here."

So the festival was a big success, right? Well, perhaps not so fast. On Sunday morning I was intrigued to find a thread titled "Taste of Durham lame" over at the City-Data Triangle forum. Three board regulars attended -- and all three of them gave it a thumbs down.

Let's hear some thoughts from the men-on-the-street:

"Did anyone else go to the Taste of Durham this weekend and think it was kinda lame? We went Raleigh's Artsplosure the weekend before and thought Taste of Durham paled in comparison.

- Location. Artsplosure was in downtown Raleigh and had a great vibe. Taste of Durham was held in a freaking parking lot in RTP.

[...]

All in all I was thoroughly disappointed.  I'd be interested to see if anyone else went and felt differently."

This opinion from a Raleighite who made the trek over from Wake County to attend the event. Interestingly, he couldn't believe the event wasn't held downtown. Perhaps some T-shirts should have been sold for the event: "I went to Taste of Durham and all I saw was a freakin' parking lot."

Here's some thoughts from a north Raleigh resident who stopped on over at the Bull City for a day:

"My heart sank when I saw the Title of this post because honestly, even though I posted here earlier this week recommending people check out the Festival, I too was very disappointed with how it turned out. This year's festival was very different from the one I attended back in 2005 when it was held in Downtown Durham. This year did not seem to have as much participation from Durham businesses and there were literally no artists there at all..... Totally different from my experience in 2005. The music was good, but they had the "main stage" in a poor location far away from the main activities so many people failed to wander over and thus missed out on some great bands.

To me though the fact that this festival was held in a Parking Lot is what killed the vibe for me. It made the event feel very generic and I never felt like it was about Durham at all. Watching a Mardi Gras parade go in a circle around a parking lot just doesn't have the same effect of watching a parade march down a downtown street. I applaud the folks who put this event on for putting in the effort, but I was very disappointed this time around. I really hope they move this event back to downtown Durham next year."

Another person coming to Durham for an experience that reflects on the city; another person who realizes that's not defined by a suburban parking lot. And a past attendee, to boot. The message here for Taste of Durham is that the positive elements of density -- the idea that crowds and bustling squares connect people, and that not everyone's looking for room to spread out and find ways to avoid coming into contact with other people -- works not just for classic urban neighborhoods, but for festivals, too!

And apparently, not just the Raleigh residents who felt this way. What did a Durham resident have to say?

"Yep, I went. What an embarassment for my city. I could not believe it. It was nothing like I thought is was going to be. Man, I wish I could have that 23 minutes back."

For the record, he lives in south Durham.

Incidentally, the C.W. over at the Chowhound forum was pretty much the same, though it should be noted that two folks had comments on a slow-food BBQ while only one had first-hand experience at the much larger Taste of Durham:

"My wife went and was very disapointed. As Ross mentioned, it was a bunch of chains. I joked that, given the location, it should have been called Taste of RTP. She laughed out loud when she read the puff-piece in the N&O. It was as if she'd gone to a different festival than the person who wrote it had.

That morning I was doing a demo at the Durham Farmer's Mkt. and ended up talking to one of the principles from one of the groups redeveloping downtown. He hopes that they'll be bringing it back downtown soon. Of course, if they don't do something to bring in real Durham restaurants, it doesn't really matter where they hold it."

'Nuff said.

Comments

[Rebecca]

The thing I found most disappointing about Taste this year was the lack of actual authentic Durham restaurants. All of Georgios restaurants were crammed into one tent, and both Pops and Locopops were noticably absent.