Yelp's Backyard Bizarre - Free Food, Drink & Entertainment!

The Backyard Bizarre is a free afternoon party on Sunday 22 from 1pm - 3pm in The Bernard Shaw with free food, drink and entertainment for anyone in attendance. Yelp is hosting this event all just to highlight what there is out there in terms of new and independent businesses in this ridiculously inventive and original city of ours. 

There will be six local independent food businesses giving out free food to get the blood sugar up - from salad boxes by Staple Foods, to pies by The Pieman Cafe, burritos by Tolteca, sushi by J2 Grill & Sushi, pizza by the Big Blue Bus and ice cream from Murphy's Ice Cream. 

They will also have tea tasting by Oolong Flower Power Tea Shop and coffee by Coffee Together. Booze will be supplied by the 5 Lamps Brewery, Zaconey, Smithwick's and Becks.

There will be plenty of bizarre and off-kilter entertainment for the afternoon too. The event is free in for anyone who wants to attend - you just need to register with Yelp and RSVP on the event page: www.yelp.ie/events

Yelp throws these events with the sole purpose of helping people seek out and support all the amazing indie businesses that are opening up in town. There are also smaller events that take place every month - also free to any Yelper. I have been to a good few and it is a great way to discover new places, get interesting 'behind the scenes' insights into local businesses and chat to lots of new likeminded people. Check out one that I blogged about before here.

Street Feast 2013: Help celebrate your local community

  
On June 23rd communities across the country will gather for their annual Street Feast. Street Feast is a neighbourhood street party that is hosted by you and your neighbours and repeated in communities all over Ireland at the same time. They are local lunches that can be held anywhere, out on the street; in a local park; in a field or in your front garden. It's all about getting people together to celebrate their local community, eat good food and strengthen community links.

Sounds like a great idea doesn't it, so how do you get involved I hear you say?? Well you have two options; you can either go to a local Street Feast or you can run your own. To find out if one is happening near you just have a look here.  

Or better yet run your own, it's very simple to do and here are six reasons why you should:

• To celebrate our streets, cul-de-sacs, neighbourhoods & local communities. 
• To support and shine a light on the communities, networks and organisations that are holding everything together.
• To have fun. To laugh. To stop for a moment. To open up and give-up our shyness for a day. It’s so much better with others…
• To encourage more life on the streets, feel safer and reduce loneliness and isolation.
• To share great local food, home-grown produce, cracking stories, bad jokes, practical skills, useful tools, different customs, common ground… 
• To show what can be achieved when a small group of neighbours come together and try something special

To make running your own Street Feast as easy as possible the Street Feast crew have complied a guide full of tips, recipes and even sample posters and invitations. The guide is available here.  Also make sure to register your Feast at streetfeast.ie - tell them where and why you are doing it and they will send you a party pack! 

Lastly don’t forget to check out the Street Feast website and blog posts for more help on how to put on your Feast. So get involved and get celebrating your local community this June.