Taste of the Valley is a Utah Valley food festival, which is held on July 24 at the Historic County Courthouse Grounds. Taste of the Valley offers area restaurants an opportunity to serve their food to the people of Provo. The Provo Orem chamber of commerce holds the food festival every year.
Tickets were $8 per person and were required to sample the food. With the ticket, you’d go around to each of the food tents and they would punch your ticket and then give you a sample of their food.
The Taste of the Valley was held at the Provo City County Courthouse Grounds with tents lined up and down the sidewalk. It was an overcast day with plenty of clouds to make it nice and shady throughout the afternoon. There were food tents from each restaurant where they showcased their cuisine. Many of the tents had lines you had to stand in to get a food sample.
Last year, I heard they had around 1200 people attend the food festival, and I’d say they probably came close to that. There were a lot of people there, but you still had room to move around.
One of our favorite food samples was from Lon’s Cookin Shack, which had some delicious barbecue.
Another treat of the Taste of the Valley was Provo FroYo frozen yogurt. It seemed to hit the spot in the hot summer heat.
There were many colorful tents set up where you could walk up to and get a food sample.
The food from Harvest was really tasty. The food at Harvest from Thanksgiving Point seemed a bit more gourmet than the other restaurants. It was a very fun afternoon tasting and sampling the food from many of the different restaurants.
My personal take: I loved the event. I can’t wait to go again next year. I hope the Taste of the Valley grows and grows so we can sample more food from Utah Valley’s restaurants.
What I enjoyed:
- the whole set-up was wonderful, sampling different food from restaurants you may never try otherwise
- there was enough water bottles and soda for people to drink in the hot sun.
- it was nice to have seats to sit down once you had your food.
What I’d like to change:
- I wish I could sample actual dishes from the restaurants; the food samples were great, but it seemed like a Saturday at Costco with the food samples on little trays for everyone to grab.
- Wouldn’t it be great to try the same dish from the restaurant at the festival that you would eat at the actual restaurant? I’d pay double the price of admission if that were possible.
- more tables and shade where you can eat the food.
- plates, forks and knives at a central location. Sometimes you’d get a food sample, but you couldn’t find a fork to eat it with
- A map that included the restaurants location in Utah Valley, with their tent number, dishes they offered, and their contact info. That way, when we try something that we liked, we could look on the map and make sure to visit that restaurant after the event. I think it would be a fun take home brochure like the maps at Disneyland that you could keep to remember the Taste of the Valley event.
I really enjoyed the Taste of the Valley food festival. It was fun, and there was plenty of restaurants to try out. I liked that I could get a water bottle and some soda bottles whenever I needed one, and the food from the restaurants was great.
It was a treat to be able to go to each of the tents, which were kinda like mini-restaurants, and try the different types of cuisine they offered. I can’t wait to make this an annual event for my family. Thanks goes to whomever made the event possible; I hope there are more food centered events in the future in Utah Valley.
– photos and text by Daniel Vineyard
