Taste of Colorado

I haven't been to the Taste in quite a while but decided to give it a go on rock and roll music day. I spent about 5 hours touring the area. The layout makes sense and flows well with the exception of the food area. The music and vendors are placed for optimal traffic and viewing. The porta-potties were off to the side, music in front of courthouse, and the food along Broadway. The music and vendors were great I ended up spending $40 on socks and beef jerky. I listened to a few songs by the Police cover band, a Zeppelin cover band, and REO. I cannot offer a way to improve these aspects of the festival and award them 4-5 stars. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the music even though organizers turned it into musical clique days. Parish the thought of different genres on the same day. The lineups are reminiscent of seating in a middle school cafeteria.The porta-potties get 3 stars mainly due to the lines. While you're waiting in a 15 deep line it's interesting to see who can muster the most appalling grimace as they step out into the fresh air. Academy Awards for sure. The technology has improved over the years with a side urinal to keep the seat somewhat usable. The odor control has improved immensely. Hand sanitizer is available too. They should have a few retro potties from the 90s for comparison giving performers a real reason to grimace. Now, the food, 1 maybe 2 stars at best. This is what crashes the overall rating. This festival is the Taste of Colorado-- it's about food, right? 30 tickets or $20, for a gyro sandwich? Is the meat marinated in Macallan? All the prices are out of wack. How much do these restaurants have to pay to be here? 50% of sales?? Everything is double what it should be. This festival is supposed to be about food! Let's represent. I spent $30 for 45 tickets. The pictures below show the ticket amounts and what I got. You be the judge. The best was the Top Sirloin from Rodizio. (Expert tip: skip the 4 ticket rice enjoy the meat.) Worst: Jaegerschnitzel for 15 tickets. The mushroom sauce was ok but way too salty; bring a sharp knife for the patti. 2 little ramekins of alligator giblets will set you back. $5.33. Jell-O shots have more substance. Street tacos were good. The lines and pedestrian flow in the food area-- ridiculous, the food--meh, the music/vendors and people watching-- much better. Recommendations: double or triple the food vendors by creating an atmosphere where they can make money and showcase and prepare their offerings. Raise the stage 10' and add a couple of big screens by the half-way-satellite-speaker extensions.

2021-09-04. Taste of Colorado. Denver, CO.A Taste of Colorado has been a 40 year tradition whose streak ended when they cancelled due to COVID-19 in 2020. In 2021, they bravely brought it back, but just like a person who has been infected with COVID, the Taste was not able to fully recover...This year, the event was held at Skyline Park, with 16th Street representing the heart of the venue. To the south, Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs is the first thing you smell. Offering up dogs made from game meat. Beyond that, wineries and microbrews showcased their wares. Samples could be purchased individually with tickets, or unlimited via a wristband. Not to worry if you have younger ones with you, at the end of the tastings College Nannies & Sitters was kind enough to showcase their services by offering fun-filled activities for them. What were the organizers thinking?! Nothing like a bunch of drunk people next to an area full of kids... Now I see how they roll in Denver... To the north of 16th Street was the food. Pretty disappointing. There were not that many vendors out and their prices were outrageous. Prices out here were higher than dining in their restaurants! Among the vendors were Berrie Kabobs, Gyros Corner, Sloneys, Granny's Goodies, Billy's Gourmet, Hot Wok, and a shop that specialized in corn to name pretty much all of them.Granny's goodies. Serving everything in massive portions of Sausages ($12), Pizza slices ($7), Rice Crispy Squares ($6), and Cookies ($3). I didn't see anything special with their food, other than the large portions, and even larger prices.Gyros Corner. Slices of meat that has been pre-grilled, onions, tomatoes, and tzatziki wrapped up in pita flatbread ($9). No different from anything you get at any restaurant. The meat was not even shaved off the spit, they were the flat pieces, and you got about 5-6 of them.Corn. Strangely this place didn't have a name, but they sold roasted corn on the cob ($4/ear), Kettle Corn, roasted nuts, Smoothies, and Frozen Lemonade ($6).Sloney's. Burgers, Sausages, Dogs, and Turkey legs, definitely the carnivore's place. The turkey legs were priced at $15, more than what it costs at any ball game, and rivaling Universal Studios where they at least throw in a bag of potato crisps!Right on Arapahoe Street on both sides of 16th Street were the food trucks. Again, not that many for supposedly a big event, but there were some unique offerings like The Captain truck selling tacos and sushi; Bits and Pieces specializing in Wings and Tacos; Repicci's selling Italian Ice and Gelato; and Billy's Gourmet.Overall, I found this to be a bit disappointing to tell you the truth. What the Taste of Colorado started off as was vendors giving away samples or selling smaller (tasting) portions for a few bucks to showcase their dishes and talents. What it has become is essentially a cash cow, vendors probably do better business here than at their brick and mortar locations! They certainly will get more traffic, and that coupled with their higher prices = cash grab. I think it's a little shameful to be honest. Many visitors travel to the Mile High city for this, and to see it go from something that was once great to what it is today just leaves a bad taste in my mouth... 1 star.If You would like to experience more, come dine-with-me.yelp.com I'd love to have your company... Bon Appétit!

Super disappointed this year. Not only did you screw over your vendors but your guest. We've been going every year since 2017 and this was by far the WORST year. Hours were cut back and we couldn't make it until Approximately 4:30. Everything was already closing even though the event was scheduled until six. No food trucks left to enjoy, vendors were packing up, and no live music left. I paid 10 bucks for parking I used for about 30 min. And why in the f did you schedule it for one day throughout months instead of a full holiday weekend? Not well thought out. And if you have statewide vendors trying to profit from a holiday weekend you certainly shortchanged all of them. BAD for business, morale, and future incentive. Please get a clue and buy a vowel for next year. You always promise and this is the first year I would say you absolutely, without a doubt DID NOT deliver. P.S. The stupid ass car show didn't make up for shit. Nobody comes to a taste of Colorado to buy an f-in car. Cater to the crowd you aim to serve and don't f it up so bad next year. PLEASE.

My dad and I had some free time to kill before I needed to head to the airport on Labor Day. We decided to check out Taste of Colorado because, to be frank, there wasn't too much else going on. While the whole weekend I heard "Taste of Colorado sucks" come out of his mouth a handful of times, I think we were both mildly impressed deciding it doesn't "suck" but is simply A-OK. In terms of getting bang for your buck, this certainly isn't the place to do that. I paid nearly $7 (in tickets) for a shot of nitro cold brew coffee. For my main dish of the day, I got a lamb sandwich from Bistro Colorado which was actually pretty darn delicious and worth it in my opinion. You really had to do a few laps to scout out to find the hidden gems amid the typical fair food. For that reason, maybe Taste of Colorado isn't quite the best name for it. Besides that, we had fun scanning all the stalls with cool arts and crafts, as well as random knick knacks. There is also the carnival area with rides and games which we stayed far away from, as well as three stages with different music happening. On the main stage during the time we were there, Granger Smith was performing who is an up and coming country singer. Pretty cool to see him for free. Would I recommend this to everyone I know? Probably not; however, if you have some time to kill, you can't really beat hanging out in the beautiful Colorado sunshine with free music, funny people watching and some good eats (if you can find them).

I typically don't like crowds but my out of town guest and some friends wanted to go to Taste of Colorado. Being a Denver native, I remember this event when it started and was only a few blocks of food tables and activities. It has grown so huge, and the crowds matched it, that it was hard to see everything, let alone stay together as a group. I split off with my visiting friend and in about 3 hours we only managed to see about a third of the stalls and listened to about 5 minutes of one band.The security line was about 15-20 minutes long but I understand the need for it - although it's a disappointing commentary to society today.They did make everyone dump their water bottles and there was no free water available because the water fountains in the park were gated off. I think it's terrible to not provide water at a public event like this - especially after "taking away" any that people brought on their own!The food and drinks were so overpriced that I was amazed people were going for it. The ticket system is the biggest scam - there's no way to use up the exact number of tickets that you have so that money is just lost. I gave our leftover tickets to a family that was coming in as we were leaving - hopefully they could use them!I'm glad my friend got to see the event but I definitely won't be going again.

It's not as bad as the review suggests, and if you're reading this early on Labor Day 2017, there's a free 38 Special show at 5!The ticket thing is annoying but it's not a ripoff by food fest standards. I strongly recommend the linguica sausage at Rodizio Grill. The steak was o.k. At Lost Cajun, the seafood gumbo was decent but not as spicy as I like, and the beignet was good. There are lots of song and dance offerings.

Huge festival. It spanned many blocks. Free entry but you need tickets to purchase food, except for the Pepsi stand. Tickets are $10 for 15 tickets. Entrees are around 15 tickets for a good number of food stalls. We got a funnel cake (13 tickets) that was freshly made and larger than the size of my face, bison carnitas and bison bacon fries (18 tickets) that were cheesy and not bad, corn on the cob (6 tickets) covered in Parmesan and whatever spices (they had a ton of spices available that you could add on yourself for no additional charge) that was awesome, a glass of strawberry lemonade (8 tickets) that was also not bad, not too sweet and did not taste powdery/from cheap concentrate, and paella (15 tickets) to go that included a lot of chicken and enough to feed 2. Most carnival games do not take tickets- they take cash. Around $3-5 for a number of plays. The jumping/flipping in the air game was the only one I saw that took tickets (15 tickets). Lots of stalls selling flea market like items or local goods. There were multiple music stages: the main one in the center, rock stage for rock music, tribute stage for oldies (or I think they were oldies?), and country stage. Music was good and crowd was lively. In general, I was very pleasantly surprised. This was a legit festival with real activities! (As opposed to the multiple festivals I went to growing up that just had a bunch of stalls trying to sell you either insurance, newspaper or timeshare and maybe just 20% of actual festival stalls.)

What a joke and what a disappointment!This festival used to have more local restaurants so you could sample different creations made in their kitchens. Instead, this was like any other outdoor festival. They sometimes have decent bands from the 80's that play for free, which is the best part of the whole festival. While I met some nice people watching music there, the rest of the fest seemed very seedy and actually scary at times. Not at all what I expected from the taste. I'm sure the crowd at the stock show is better!

Super disappointed. My family and I have been going to this event for years and have always had a wonderful time. However this year was basically a whole new event. It was so tiny, there were barely any vendors and we walked the whole thing twice in less than an hour. It was such a waste of time. Also a waste of parking money. The only good change was that they added food trucks this year, which was cool and unique.I was also super frustrated that we promote hydrating in our city and at our elevation and yet they made me dump out my water in the street!! 1) we should be allowed to have water!! 2) were a semi desert location always in need of water, if I have to dump it, have some grass available! If you did want water once inside then you needed to wait in line at one of the bars to purchase water. Really?? The bars are always the longest lines. Save yourself the time and money. It wasn't worth it.

One of the worst years ever. I had friends from out of state and I told them how awesome it was. Vendors with jewelry, leather, silver, beads, insence etc. There was 1 side of a street 25 booths maybe, food vendors dominated two areas, kids area very limited. And u had to buy tickets to taste to taste any of the local distillery product. The music was great though. Definitely Not coming again if it so sparse.