Evanston is home to many diverse cuisines served at a variety of unique and delicious restaurants. Every year, many of these restaurants bring their best to Taste of Evanston, an annual community event and fundraiser showcasing the city’s restaurants. Taste of Evanston is organized by the Evanston Lighthouse Rotary Club to raise money for Connections for the Homeless and Reba Place Development Corporation. This year’s event was held on September 17, and we were lucky enough to go.
From the venue to the guest speakers, the event is all about food. Some of our personal favorite dishes were from Supreme Burrito, Reza’s, La Principal and Firehouse Grill. Reza’s, although positioned away from the entrance, brought food that deserved to be put up front. It provided mouthwatering Mediterranean food that included pita bread, rice, lamb and pork. Firehouse Grill delivered a textbook Detroit-style pizza that was served warm and gooey, with a solid bread crust. La Principal served a Mexican street corn dish called elotes. The corn tasted sweet and combined perfectly with all of the right seasonings to create a dish worthy of being written about. Evanston is home to many amazing dishes from all kinds of restaurants, but one dish stood out among the rest: the tacos from Supreme Burrito. Tasting exactly how tacos should, the corn tortilla combined just right with the pork to make them juicy and all-around amazing. The hot sauce enhanced the taco as well, adding even more flavor. With all this incredible food in our town, it’s safe to say that Evanston tastes pretty good.
However, getting all these restaurants together can be a difficult task. Taste of Evanston was a large undertaking according to one of the lead organizers Bill Glader, larger than it has ever been in the past.
“Me and about four other people started it, and it just kept growing and growing… The first one was pretty small by comparison, and this is probably as big as it’s ever been,” says Glader.
The event this year included around 40 restaurants, breweries, cafes, bakeries, and stores providing the food and drinks, a huge number in comparison to the ten restaurants present at the first Taste of Evanston, in 2015. 50 additional sponsors were present at this year’s event as well.
The ninth annual Taste of Evanston was hosted at the Charles Gates Dawes House, the home of former US Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Charles Dawes. The house was constructed in 1894, and was lived in by the Dawes family from 1909 to 1957, when it was passed into the care of Northwestern University, and later the Evanston Historical Society. The Dawes Yard has been the venue of the Taste of Evanston for the past seven years, with ample room for restaurants from all across Evanston to set up stands in tents across the yard and present some of their best dishes.
Taste of Evanston is a great community event that is growing every year. It showcases many amazing restaurants in Evanston, provides a great summary of Evanston food, and most importantly, gives back to the community through Connections for the Homeless, Reba Place Development Corp, and the Evanston Rotary Club. Although the taste is sweet, the event is only hosted once a year. In the meantime, try some of Evanston’s locally-owned restaurants, and consider donating or volunteering with any of the charities that support the event.
