Taste of Pinecrest 2013

For eleven years now, the Pinecrest Business Association has organized the Taste of Pinecrest, a festival to showcase the many restaurants, businesses and services the Village has to offer. This year was unique however, in that the event was held outside of Pinecrest.

2013’s Taste of Pinecrest was hosted at the brand new South Dade Family YMCA campus (across from The Falls mall) which also used the day as their grand opening.

Taste of Pinecrest Chairman Mark Soldevilla called it “…a perfect combination of community. We wanted to celebrate this great new building with great food, music, people and fun.”

There is little doubt to the success of the combination. The attendance numbers were roughly double last year’s event at Pinecrest Gardens and the new YMCA signed up more than 240 new families during the week, more than half on the day of the event alone.

With food being sold using pre-purchased tickets, vendors serving everything from lobster sliders to salads to BBQ ribs had brisk business all day long. Many ran out of food 90-minutes before close.

Charlotte Donn, Assistant VP of Marketing and Communications for the YMCA explained, “We sold more tickets in the first two hours than we expected all day. We had to rush out and buy more to keep things moving!”

Local and regional bands performed throughout the day, providing a variety of high quality music for attendees. Everything from kids bands 'Avengers' & 'The Rock Band' to 'Kaylee Rose', 'Blackstar' and 'The Vibe'.

Soldevilla praised Raf Fiol, The Vibe's bassist and owner of kompoz.com, “He really took the musical entertainment we presented to a whole new level.” Fiol was helped by Tom Hall (of Mr. Nice Guy) who ran sound engineering all day.

The kiddie area has several rides, a rock climbing wall and the obligatory bounce houses.

For the adults, there were cooking demonstrations and the ability to learn about and connect with Pinecrest business.

Inside was an exhibit put on by ARTcycle co-founder Giselle Delgado, an group dedicated to raise awareness for bikers and drivers promoting wellness and safety while supporting the arts. Kids like 5-year old Krishelle Brown certainly enjoyed painting the bike.

Alfred Sanchez, CEO of the YMCA of Greater Miami, added “We’re proud to be associated with this premiere event and proud that our grand opening went so well.”

Taste of Pinecrest 2013 VIDEO STORY