By JOHN ANDERSON
The first-ever Taste of Wellsville is Saturday and here is everything you need to know as you bring your family, your money and your appetite to Main Street:
WHERE
Main Street will be closed just like the Main Street Balloon Rally Festival. The roads are closed from Pearl Street (turn left or right when you see the big JB’s Family Fitness sign and Beef Haus) to East State Street (Walgreens).
Where do you park? Side streets and public lots.
TIME
It will go from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
There will be a tent set up between L’Italia and Community bank with tables and chairs if you want shade to sit down and eat.
COST
This is the easy and complex part. It’s free to attend. There is everything from bounce houses to free live music and sun flowers. More on that stuff later.
Each vendor is selling special scaled down menu items at a cheaper cost so you can get food from many different vendors. Each place has menu items under $5 as well. This is also a relief to those of us with families who just spent $9 per lemonade for our kids at the fair and balloon rally! (Editor’s Note: It’s the best $9 I spend each summer).
There will also be some free samples of food and a fun Bingo card you can get stamps from at vendors. The Bingo cards are available at the Wellsville Development Corporation table and tent near Madison Street (Texas Hot area). Turn that in and three people will win Giant Food Mart gift cards.
What cool stuff is there to see and do?
In addition to food vendors up and down Main Street, there are artisan booths, different farms coming and setting up, an array of flowers from a sunflower stand to a cut flower stand, there will be artists, vendors with soaps, lotions, toys and other items.
On the Library lawn is the Wellsville YMCA Kids Zone, with a bounce house and carnival games. Down by Pizza King and Sugar Daddy’s there will be corn hole boards set up for games.
There will also be free concerts with music at the library from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. as Music on the Lawn has donated their stage. While you are snacking on real butter cookies, you can enjoy the music of Anton Flint, Emma Tyme, Alex Cole and The Young Sisters.
How is all of this free again?
You haven’t seen our name attached to it, but the Wellsville Sun had a lot to do with bringing the movers and shakers together at a table. It started with the Wellsville Area Chamber of Commerce adding a non-profit corporation wing called the Wellsville Development Corporation. They were famous pretty early on for volunteering their beautification skills in the village and working with the village, chamber and businesses to make Main Street look pretty cool.
Then there was the Giant Food Mart. At events like this, there are fees, you have to charge vendors and other financial issues come up. Giant Food Mart’s new owners said the family wanted to be a big part of the community and they have, especially for this event. They are sponsoring all of the costs so the only thing you have to pay for is a few of the food plates.
