PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Next week’s annual culinary arts fundraiser for the FringeArts Festival has made some coronavirus-inspired changes to the event.
Feastival is back in person for its 12th year, highlighting Philadelphia’s culinary arts.
“It’s sort of a celebration this year of everyone doing what they can to get back to some sense of normalcy, or at least the new normalcy,” said Joanne Marder, FringeArts senior director of development.
In 2019, about 70 restaurants participated. This year, there are about 50.
“Oyster House is going to be onsite shucking oysters. Porcos Porchetteria, they’re doing a small oven pastry shop. Sri’s Company Philly, Sri Lanken beef cutlets. We have African cuisine, we have Israeli cuisine, we have lots of cool food.”
And because of COVID-19, Marder said they’re doing more to help support participating chef volunteers.
“We’re providing a stipend to each restaurant that’s participating this year and we’re also, through The Restaurant School, providing labor.”
They’ve also expanded the size of the event space, which, this year, is the 150,000-square-foot Budd Building in East Falls.
“We wanted to create lounges and stuff so that everybody could feel that they have some space to go and they can social distance if they want,” she added.
And since you can’t eat wearing a mask, Feastival is a vaccination-required event.
“People need to have proof of vaccination to attend, but not only attending, everybody working the event — everybody has to be vaccinated.”
Tickets for Feastival on Oct. 21 can be purchased online.
For more on Feastival, listen to the KYW Newsradio original podcast What’s Cooking on the Audacy app or in the player above.