Annual Fashion Event Drew In Orange County Singles For Three-Day Food & Drink Festival
Before Newport Beach had today’s upscale food and wine festivals, there was the Taste of Newport, a legendary annual social event at Fashion Island that brought together Orange County singles, restaurants, drinks and live music for one of the city’s most anticipated weekends.
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Nightlife Blogger
Much like Manhattan Beach to the north used to look forward to the Surfest/6-man event as a seasonal social highlight and even bikers and bare-butts the whacky Mooning of the Amtrak in Laguna Niguel to the south, the city of Newport Beach would mark its calendar for the annual Taste of Newport.
Held the third weekend in September until sometime after about 2010, it was as much of the residents’ ritual as going to a bar, as big a part of the landscape as the Balboa Pier.
The Taste of Newport was a three-day outdoor food and drink festival with has-been (but still fun) one-time touring pop and rock bands and a ripe social scene that was THE place to be that weekend in Orange County, CA.
The allure was never the food (though it was quite good and with a wide variety of selections from dozens of Newport and OC restaurants), the music or even the drinks. Well, okay, the mojitos and other adult beverages were certainly a draw, but the Taste of Newport was all about the atmosphere. It was outdoor at fashionable Fashion Island and the crowd was eager to socialize.
As the weekend approached, the town began to buzz. By Thursday all the water cooler talk centered around what time one can make it to the event. Text messages began to outnumber e-mails.
Singles flocked to the spot on Friday and Sunday afternoon (couples seem to have preferred Saturdays). The gates opened on Friday at 6 p.m., and the first guests walked through at oh, about 6:01.
While primarily a playground for Orange County and Newport Beach in particular, the Taste of Newport was by no means limited to the local area. There were people from Long Beach and other places from around L.A.
When The PubClubettes Took Over Taste of Newport
PubClub.com would arrange a party bus with fun party event seekers from the South Bay Beach Cities of Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo. The PubClubettes, PubClub’s brand ambassadors, were always on board and created quite a stir at the Taste. They moved through the event in their distinctive white shirts, posing for pictures and dazzling the men with their endless charm.
This article is Part of the PubClub Classics series, revisiting classic nightlife, travel and event scenes from PubClub’s archives.
Kevin Wilkerson is the founder of PubClub.com, a Southern California resident, award-winning journalist and nightlife expert who has covered destinations, events and entertainment for more than two decades. While working as a newspaper reporter, he received an Associated Press award for investigative journalism.
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