City
Tasting the Danforth
Souvlaki on a pita and roasted quail being sold from local restaurants. Cellular phones and money transfers being plugged from corporate tents. Welcome to the 14th annual Taste of the Danforth Festival! Yesterday I braved the intense heat and the massive crowds in order to pig out on food and enjoy one of Toronto's most interesting festivals.
Taste of the Danforth seemed to become more and more corporate the more west you went. The eastern-most part of the festival was great, filled with local vendors and delicious food. I couldn't resist the lemonade, funnel cake, and corn on the cob (sure, none of that is Greek food, but it was delicious nonetheless.) As I walked west I started to be overwhelmed by both crowds of people and corporate sponsorship.
Steelback beer along with the Pickle Barrel managed to block up a significant portion of the street with their beer garden and restaurant. The Jays, Leafs, Argos, Raptors, and Toronto FC continued to hog the road with children's batting cages, jumping castles, and basketball nets. Those events, combined with a giant rock climbing wall and face painting booths seemed like fun for the kids.
Then came the Western Union tent. Apparently a lot of people walking through GreekTown on the weekend need to send quick, secure money transfers worldwide. A lot of people must have allergies too, because Reactine was also prominently displayed on the street. Of course, no Toronto event would be complete without Rogers Wireless making sure that every person in this city is constantly buying one of their new cell phones.
Despite being stopped several times by corporate representatives, the day was still enjoyable. The food was good, the prices were fair, and the weather was amazing. The street was packed with people eating, laughing, and watching stage shows. The chicken on a pita was fabulous, despite being from a Brazilian restaurant, not a Greek one. In fact, I didn't have any Greek food the entire time. It seems like this festival is moving away from primarily Greek food to become a true multicultural festival, one that is very representative of Toronto.
Taste of the Danforth continues today (Sunday) until 8pm along Danforth Avenue.
Discussion
12 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
Fortunately, it was still a good time.
OMG.
Was hotterthanabastard though. But a patch of sunburn is a small price to pay for souvlaki: - )
And I finally got a chance to duck into Book City.
Did they rent sidewalk space from the city?
Can anyone just set up a tent and sell merchandize during the festival?
Did they donate money? (Doesn't seem necessary with all the traffic)
I think it's fine if something like face painting or a jungle gym is brought to you by a corporate sponsor because I appreciate them bringing enjoyment to the festival, but being stopped by a cell phone company just trying to sell me a phone while I'm making my way through the crowd is ridiculous.
I mean, I'm there to order food from local vendors not buy a cell phone. Are they kidding me?
"Sure, we can do that, but what's in it for us?"
Maybe I'm naive, but wouldn't it be nice to just have something be for the sake of itself. Are there just not enough avenues for corporations to push their crap on us already? They have to take our festivals too? What won't they just leave alone.
I don't care that it's called the "KRINOS Taste of the Danforth" and I don't care if the beer garden was brought to you by Steelback. I don't even mind seeing ads on things, if it helps pay for them.
What I don't get is why a booth selling cell phones is even at the event? Couldn't Rogers have stuck their name on a jumping castle or something and had some pamphlets available? At least their sponsorship would have done some good (providing a jumping castle) rather than just be an annoyance.
There is just no escape from the corporate/commercial/advertising behemoth.
As for the "non-greek food" - the ethnic diversity of Danforth is reality, why should the Brazilians and Indians and Thais be excluded?
The weekend is usually a money looser for the restaurants (don't let the full tables fool you, you can't sell 18-25 dollar mains to people who've stuffed themselves on samples) and some of the businesses on the street (the guy from Sun Valley claims he looses a huge amount of money) and most of them don't even sell their own food, they use outside caterers.
If anything, I said that I supported the non-Greek food: "It seems like this festival is moving away from primarily Greek food to become a true multicultural festival, one that is very representative of Toronto."