Downtown Naperville’s newest event gave everyone something to Taco-‘Bout! 300 people joined in on the city’s first-ever Taco Crawl.
How the Taco Crawl worked
The Downtown Naperville Alliance partnered with ten restaurants to make it happen. Beginning at Pinot’s Palette, participants received one of two maps on a lanyard, each having a route to five of the restaurants on them, and then proceeded to sample a taco at each location in any order at any pace.
“We do our wine walks and our chocolate walks and everybody loves tacos so we figured what’s a great way to incorporate tacos into the footprints of events we already do?” said Danielle Tufano, Executive Director of the Downtown Naperville Alliance. “So that’s how the Taco Crawl was born.”
The event concluded an after-party also at Pinot’s Palette, featuring music, desserts, and a raffle.
‘We thought it’d be a fun activity to do the taco crawl,” said Cindy Janowitz, a taco lover. “Some of our favorite restaurants happen to be on it and it’s just something fun to do.”
“The best part is being with my parents and trying new tacos,” said Avery Powers, one of the event participants.
Celebrating Hispanic heritage
The event comes as part of the month-long celebration of National Hispanic Heritage month, from September 15 to October 15, recognizing the contributions and influences of Hispanic Americans.
“Naperville specifically is a melting pot just lust like the rest of the United States that is rich in culture,” said Tufano. “We have all different kinds of culture. So we want to be able to showcase that in downtown Naperville.”
Proceeds benefit Naperville’s Sister Cities Foundation, which oversees the sister cities of Cancun and Patzcuaro, Mexico, as well as Nitra, Slovakia.
Taco Crawl sold out quickly
Organizers say the event sold out in record time, in just one hour.
“All the fun things we enjoy we know we have to jump on because if we go back the next day, it’s always sold out,” said Bob Janowitz. “It’s not uncommon.”
“As long as this goes well for our restaurants – and we know the public loves their taco crawl – we would love to be able to do this again in the future,” said Tufano.
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