“Where there’s good local food, Birmingham will come!” says REV’s Director of the Urban Food Project, Taylor Clark. “It’s a driver for vibrancy and business growth.”
Last week’s Birmingham Restaurant Week Preview Party proved her right. Birmingham Restaurant Week exists to celebrate and support our wonderful locally-owned restaurants. It also aims to promote support for dining locations that buy and sell locally-sourced food and ingredients. This helps cycle your hard-earned dollars back into the community, allowing restaurants to continue to offer the freshest local food.
In addition to the seventeen restaurants at the Birmingham Restaurant Week Preview Party, two CO.STARTERS grads and an Alabama farmer from Cullman County popped up in a temporary “general store” at Pickwick Plaza during the annual event. The vacant space was transformed into a retail hotspot, giving Birmingham foodies a taste of these local entrepreneurs’ goods: cake and cookies from Velvet Kake, popcorn from Naughty but Nice Kettle Corn and a farm-fresh small batch of hot sauce and pickles from Urban Food Project farmer Dwight Hamm of Hamm Farm. If you missed the general store or if you already need more of these startups’ products, you can find them at a market near you.
Support local businesses by participating in Birmingham Restaurant Week now through Sunday, August 20! When you’re choosing a restaurant to patronize, you can look for the Urban Food Project logo to see who is serving fresh local produce. Click here for a list of restaurants!