ST. LOUIS — The Taste of Black St. Louis made an announcement on Aug. 28 in a Facebook post saying it is with "deepest regret" that they are postponing their festival this year.
The festival was going to be held at the Arch in downtown St. Louis in September. Last year the event was held in the City Foundry STL.
Aisha James, the founder and CEO of the Taste of Black St. Louis, said in the post that event planners enjoyed the excellent response from all their vendors, supporters, and community to last year’s event.
They also said as they prepared for this year’s festival, they were excited about the public response and community support.
James said they were working with several great local organizations to get ahead of various challenges and find collaborative solutions, “but with just a few days left before the event, we had to make the difficult, but necessary decision to postpone.”
James also said they concluded that they could not create the type of festival experience that would meet their standards and measure up to their reputation for producing a quality event.
“We would not have fulfilled our commitment to our vendors as well as our community that we have served for years,” James said.
In response to comments about their post, They also said for legal reasons they are not allowed to discuss what happened.
Also, they can not answer questions about why the event was postponed.
The festival is usually three days long with hundreds of vendors offering meals.
Several of the businesses that participated in the past were said to survive the pandemic because of the exposure the festival provided.
Sponsors such as Brunch LLC STL, Fresh Thyme Market, BJC HealthCare and St. Louis Community College contributed to the festival last year.
The food tasting celebration has been around since 2018.
They said they will be back, bigger and better next year and plan to hold the event on Lenore K. Sullivan Boulevard 12 p.m. to 9 p.m.
