With the onset of fall, attention in Sunnyside turns to the annual Taste of Sunnyside restaurant and bar crawl, which returns for a 15th year in October.
The hugely popular annual event will take place from 1-7 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 12, with participants set to begin their journey underneath the elevated 7 train at 46th St-Bliss St before setting out to try neighborhood restaurants on either side of Queens Boulevard.
The exact list of venues for the 2025 restaurant crawl has not yet been released by the Sunnyside Shines Business Improvement District (BID). However, Dirk McCall de Palomá, the BID’s executive director, said he expects a similar number of participants as last year, when a record-breaking 65 local businesses took part in the crawl .
Last year’s event was record-breaking on several fronts, featuring by far the largest number of participating restaurants and attendees, with more than 1,200 people sampling local bites and brews.. It was also the longest-running event in Taste of Sunnyside’s 14-year history, running for six hours.
Participants reveled in the glorious fall sunshine last October as they moved between the participating restaurants, bars, and coffee shops, which ranged from Latin American eateries to Irish bars and from Asian restaurants to bakeries and ice cream shops.
The Taste of Sunnyside aims to promote the neighborhood as a culinary destination by showcasing the diverse restaurant mix in Sunnyside. Attendees go door-to-door to sample food and drinks from participating businesses, which set up stands in front of their establishments to allow ticketholders to sample their cuisine.
The event was changed to a crawl format in 2021 due to safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and to allow attendees to better engage with the participating businesses, with long lines forming outside a number of restaurants throughout the day last year.
McCall de Palomá said the crawl format has been an overwhelming success, stating that it shows attendees where specific restaurants are located in the neighborhood and allows them to connect with restaurant and bar owners.
“You’re meeting the people behind the food, and you’re trying one of the best things on the menu,” McCall de Palomá said after last year’s event.
Restaurant and bar owners throughout the neighborhood were overwhelmingly in favor of the crawl format, stating that the event helped put local joints on the map.
Michelle Murphy, who co-owns Bar 43 with her husband Nick, has participated in Taste of Sunnyside since the event’s inception and described the restaurant crawl as an opportunity to meet new faces in the neighborhood.
“Even meeting and greeting people here at the front of a restaurant, they’re more enticed to come in,” Murphy said last year.
Valerio Marchi, the owner of Sotto Le Stelle, SoleLuna, and gelato spot Arcobaleno, has been involved in the restaurant crawl for eight years and said it was a “beautiful thing” for Sunnyside. He also welcomed the recent change of format, which brings attendees to individual restaurants rather than bringing restaurants to stands set up underneath the 46th Street subway station.
“People come to my restaurant and know how it looks,” he said last year. “It’s easier to prepare the food as well. We can prepare a little food and make it fresh. Before you used to have to prepare a lot of food.”
The event has also continuously proved to be a hit among attendees.
Justin and Amanda Chapin have moved out of the neighborhood but have been returning for Taste of Sunnyside for the past three years to sample the best of what Sunnyside has to offer.
“Every year, it gets bigger and better,” Justin Chapin said. “There are more vendors every year, and the food’s delicious. It’s a great deal. You get more food than you can possibly eat.”
Sunnyside Shines is set to launch early bird tickets for the Taste of Sunnyside in the coming weeks.
