Burr Ridge to host Taste, Car Show on Saturday

By JESSE WRIGHT | PIONEER PRESS | OCT 05, 2021 AT 10:47 AM

Saturday will be a busy day for Burr Ridge with a variety of entertainment options from morning until evening.

The Burr Ridge Car Show kicks things off at 8 a.m. and runs through the afternoon at the parking lot between Village Green and Lifetime Fitness at the Village Center, while the Taste of Burr Ridge gets things going at 11 a.m., also at the Village Center.

The Burr Ridge Car Show is free for visitors — and car owners can pre-register for $10 or register for $20 the day of — and will offer up close looks at antique cars, European cars, kit cars and more. There’s also food for sale on site and there will be music.

Both events were paused last year due to COVID-19, and this is also the first time the events have shared a day — and a space.

The Taste of Burr Ridge celebrates local eateries and chefs — including some pop-up options like food trucks. It’s free to enter the event, watch bands ARRA and Reckless and watch cooking demonstrations but if you want to eat anything, you’ll need to get a ticket.

Tickets run $20 before and $25 the day of the event and each ticket comes with six vouchers. The food vendors include local favorites Stix & Stones, Wok ‘n Fire, Capri and more.

Hannah Weyant, the Community Engagement Analyst for the Village of Burr Ridge, said this year’s events should be more or less normal — it’s all outdoors — though she urges attendees to take reasonable precautions over COVID-19 concerns.

“Because it’s an outdoor event, we’re asking those who attend follow the normal outdoor procedures, were not restricting the sizes or anything like but we are going to follow the law of the land,” she said.

This isn’t to say the pandemic didn’t affect the event. The staffing shortages affecting businesses and restaurants nationwide hit Burr Ridge, too.

“Ordinarily it was supposed to be spread out over Saturday and Sunday, but the restaurants weren’t sure they could commit to a two-day event and some couldn’t even commit to a one-day event, due to staffing shortages,” Weyant.

As for the big weekend, Weyant said the village wanted to combine the events to better serve area residents.

“We wanted the Burr Ridge Car Show and the Taste of Burr Ridge to be tied together,” she said. “Maybe visitors can walk off some of what they’ve eaten and check out the cars or vice versa.”

While the car show is still accepting entries, this year should be one of the biggest car shows in recent memory.

“For the car show we’ve had almost 100 people preregister and we’ve never had that many people preregister,” Weyant said.

Even despite the staffing shortages, the Taste event should offer more than usual as, for the first time ever, the village is inviting food trucks into the mix.

“We’ve never had an event in Burr Ridge that’s had any food trucks, ever,” she said. “I live in Aurora and they’re common there, but it’s not something that’s commonplace here.”

The trucks, Weyant explained, have their own fans and, of course, unlike restaurants, they keep irregular schedules, so the offerings could be entirely new for residents.

“It brings in something a little different than what we’re used to in Burr Ridge,” Weyant said.

And there are activities for kids, too, as the Taste of Burr Ridge will offer kids’ music and activities during the day.

“As for kids’ activities, there will be giant-size lawn games like checkers and Jenga and we’ll have that on the Village Green,” she said.

To register a car for the car show, visit burr-ridge.gov/events/car-show. To get tickets to the Taste of Burr Ridge, visit eventbrite.com and search for Taste of Burr Ridge.

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Original Article via The Chicago Tribune