Bring a date, bring your friends, or attend solo; just don’t miss Off the Menu: Food & Wine Festival on Thursday, Oct. 6. The debut event will be from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the outdoor Pop Art Museum, 125 W. Twohig Ave., and will feature more than a dozen local chefs and six breweries and wineries, as well as live music from Caleb Young Band.
Jaton Hampton, event planner and marketer with Blue Door Events, handpicked the chefs (many of whom are restauranteurs), including Nicole McDuffie, who has been featured in Texas Monthly and Magnolia Journal; Taishi Ligon, winner of the Food Network’s Christmas Cookie Challenge; Jason Helfer, longtime owner of the Peasant Village, as well as PV Deli; Ishma Parker, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu; and more. Breweries and wineries are La Tierra de los Napoles, Farm Ale Brewing Co., Wild Texas Wines, Plateau Brewing Company, Horny Toad Brewery, and William Chris Vineyards.
Off the Menu is another event brainchild of Jaton Hampton, creator of the wildly popular Paintbrush Alley Market Days and the Food Truck Festival. Such events are in line with Hampton’s goal of bringing arts-inspired entertainment options featuring local talent to her San Angelo hometown.
Hampton and her husband, Courtney, a local chef, lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area before returning to Hampton’s hometown roots. She may have left the hustle and bustle of the big city behind, but she returned with unique event ideas for West Texas, a place jam-packed with local talent.
“The food and drink scene in San Angelo is growing and evolving by leaps and bounds, and I want to help contribute to that and give people more entertainment options that revolve around what the extraordinary hidden, and not-so-hidden talent San Angelo already has to offer,” Hampton said, adding that being a foodie and married to a chef helped her formulate and execute the event. “We eventually want to grow it to be more like the Austin Food & Wine Festival, but this is an exciting start.”
Hampton has other events coming down the pike, starting with this weekend’s Food & Truck Festival at the Paseo and another Paintbrush Alley Market Days in October.
For more information on Off the Menu, or to purchase tickets, go to www.satxfw.com.