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Addison staff pitches year-round restaurant-and-events "menu" to replace Taste Addison
Summary
Staff proposed a flexible, year-round package of marketing campaigns and events designed to support Addison restaurants and hotels after Taste Addison ended; council encouraged refining specifics and funding options for the upcoming budget.
Addison staff presented a year-round, quartered menu of special-event concepts intended to promote restaurants and hotels after the decision to discontinue Taste Addison in 2026.
Abby Morales, director of special events and theater, told council the team surveyed restaurants (214 on the distribution list; after excluding corporate-managed locations about 165 were targeted) and received a roughly 41% response rate. Staff used the feedback and additional brainstorming to propose a flexible model that mixes marketing campaigns with produced events, ranging from ticketed elevated experiences to smaller marketing-driven promotions.
The proposed year is divided into quarters with illustrative concepts: Q1 would feature a "best of" competition with a people's-choice element and a media event; Q2 would include physical events tied to Taste Addison's legacy (including a "Taste on the tarmac" concept and a community dinner modeled on an elevated restaurant experience); Q3 would emphasize a restaurant-week-style campaign focused on lunch service to capture Addison's large daytime population (staff cited a daytime population swell to about 125,000); and Q4 would focus on holidays and themed progressive dinners or food-centric festivals.
"The menu concept is there just for you to kind of visualize what that would look like if we built out the entire year," Morales said, noting the approach is intended to be scalable and sponsorable. Staff also identified categories of potential funding: some events would be fully subsidized by the town, others partially subsidized, and some expected to generate revenue via ticket sales or sponsorship.
Council members generally praised the creativity but asked for more detail on hotel engagement, how to bring "heads and beds" to town, and whether the off-site elevated events would meaningfully increase restaurant receipts. Staff said they will return with concrete options in the budget process and said selected pilot activities could be implemented before October.
Next steps: staff will refine cost estimates and present budget-amendment options during the upcoming budget cycle. Council indicated interest in marketing-forward projects aimed at increasing weekday lunch business for restaurants and in pilot events that could be scaled if successful.
