ST. LOUIS — This weekend, Ballpark Village is cooking with the hot St. Louis food scene. Local restaurants, pop-ups and even food trucks are all coming together for the annual Taste of St. Louis.
The invention of "smell-o-vision" would be better to convey the full melting pot of different cuisines on display in downtown St. Louis over the next three days.
About 33 restaurants came out for this year's Taste of St. Louis, including people still up and coming in the St. Louis food scene. Taking it as an opportunity since many of them have never cooked on this large of a scale.
The food fest started at 5:00 pm Friday. Crowds of customers enjoying sausages, pastries from around the world and buckets and buckets of Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken being dropped in the fryer tonight.
"Working downtown or working in the city of St. Louis, we can come here to Ballpark Village and just enjoy so many food options, a variety of food options," Ria Jackson who came for dinner on Friday said.
Making the space known for hot dogs smell like the best kind of food hall with the most vendors ever, co-director of Taste It Productions Chuck Justus told 5 On Your Side.
"I was talking to one of the food vendors a few minutes ago, they're from Fairview Heights," Justus said. "They have a restaurant over in Fairview Heights and they came to the festival as an attendee last year and now they want to be part of it. I'm excited they're here. I believe it is Mom's Kitchen is the name of that vendor."
Justus emphasized that foodies are coming together for approximately the 23rd year for this event.
"It's really neat to see the camaraderie amongst all the restaurants," Justus said. "They really do help each other. They get excited about trying each other's food. On Sunday night, you'll see them walking around with plates of food, walking around handing it off to people. It's pretty neat to see them."
Hungry people from across the bi-state stopped by after work to get a downtown dinner and drink.
"St. Louis is probably one of the most underrated food scenes that exists if you ask me," Kiesha House who visited Taste of St. Louis Friday said. "You get everything at Taste of St. Louis. You get the opportunity to taste places you didn't even know we had."
House lives downtown, about a two-minute walk from Ballpark Village. She said she'll be back again this weekend to sample some other options.
You haven't missed your chance to do the same since Taste of St. Louis runs on Saturday from 11 a.m. - 10 p.m. and again Sunday from 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. in Ballpark Village.