A cheery mob made its way through downtown Napa last week to taste and sip what the city’s tasting rooms and restaurants have to offer.

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Drinking and eating your way through downtown

THURSDAY AUG. 25, 2011 NAPA, CA - Organizer Cline Moore, far left, guides wine and food lovers through downtown Napa during Culinary Crawl II Thursday evening. Attendees started at John Anthony for wine and cheese, then moved on to Uva Trattoria, Stonehedge, Gotts Roadside and back to John Anthony.
Information on the next Napa Culinary Crawl is at donapa.com

The group of about 40 people was part of Napa’s second Culinary Crawl that gives participants VIP treatment at downtown food and drink establishments, organizers said.

“We have so many great venues to share that we needed to create an event to showcase four to five places in one night,” said event publicist Robin Parker. “It’s a great way to give people a taste of Napa and get them into places they may not be able to get into.”

Cline Moore, who grew up in Napa and now lives in Sacramento, founded the event. He also founded Grub Crawls in Sacramento, San Francisco, Albany, Berkeley, Oakland and Denver in 2008 to give businesses a boost when the economy turned sour.

“The idea was to come up with some ideas to put some new blood, some new life in the downtown scene and really expose what’s going on the culinary front,” Moore said. “Boom or bust in the economy, if we don’t support our restaurants, we lose them.”

Each Culinary Crawl, sponsored by the Napa Tourism Improvement District, includes four to five stops within walking distance from one another, Moore said. The establishments offer light food, along with drinks for purchase at discounted rates.

“We want to give people a taste of Napa so you can come back at leisure and try things that you tasted and liked or saw and wanted to try,” Moore said.

On Thursday, participants started their crawl at John Anthony where the tasting room treated them to specialty cheeses and offered discounts on wine. From there, the group walked to Uva for beer specials and pizza, and then to Stonehedge winery and Gott’s Roadside. The walking tour concluded four hours later back at John Anthony, where there was a prize drawing.

Throughout the night, participants used their smartphones to play the “SCVNGR” game. Using their phones’ global positioning system, they checked in to each establishment to answer trivia questions.

Moore led the group in other games throughout the night. One was a makeshift game of poker using the five numbers printed on each person’s wristband in place of cards.

“The games, like SCVNGR, really encourage you to meet other people,” said Darby Line, who attended the Culinary Crawl while visiting Napa from Coral Springs, Fla. “It’s a good event for the participating restaurants and a good event for people to network.”

Moore and restaurant purveyors awarded prizes, like bottles of wine and cheese gift sets, throughout the night. Chefs and restaurant employees spoke to the group to share wine pairing tips and food information.

“There’s not very many opportunities when you can have 30 to 40 people hand-delivered to your place of business,” said Dave Bryant, John Anthony director of sales and marketing. “Having that captive audience is huge, especially for a new business. Having them be able to come in and experience it with a big group of people and see it at its best is a cool opportunity for us.

“It’s cool to see the place packed to the gills and everybody having a really good time.”

Erika Bjork, who works with Parker at AugustineIdeas, noted that downtown Napa has experienced a restaurant boom in recent years. “Supporting local business supports the city,” she said.

If the event gets popular enough, entertainment could be added, Bjork said. It’s all about connecting with other people and local businesses.

“The great thing about food and wine is when you share it with other people and you share an experience,” Bjork said. “This is a great example of one way to do it.”


Read more: http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/drinking-and-eating-your-way-through-downtown/article_73f1830a-d389-11e0-825c-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=story#ixzz1XCLSMx6bFor More Info Visit http://grubcrawlusa.com/