Over 130 participants had their Irish party pants on for the St. Patrick’s Day Tavern Tour in Downtown Alton, March 17.
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Alton Main Street organized the Tavern Tour to bring people to Downtown Alton, check out new places and visit the familiar favorite hotspots.
“Everyone was having a great time and it was fun to see so many people dressed up in their St. Patrick’s Day gear,” said Sara McGibany, Executive Director of Alton Main Street. “I had someone say to me that they came downtown last year, hoping there would be something going on for St. Patrick’s Day but there was nothing, so people were happy to see all the fun festivities and people out and about this year. We will definitely be doing it again next year.”
Each bar that participated pre-purchased 12 tickets to either sell to customers or give them away. Anyone that wanted to participate could purchase tickets for $10. The ticket included a piece of "St. Pat’s flair" to wear, discounted food and drink specials, various entertainment and giveaways at each participating business.
Those businesses included:
The Firehouse
Big Muddy Pub
Bossanova
Chez Marilyn
Bluff City Grill
Old Bakery Beer Co.
Ragin Cajun
Spirits/300 State
Bubby & Sissy’s
Tony’s Prohibition Lounge
Shakers
Upon purchasing the ticket, the party goer received a passport and for each purchase made at a locations listed above, they received a stamp on their passport for that particular spot. Later in the evening, before 10 p.m., the passports were turned into one of the participating establishments. All the passports were then collected and for each establishment that was marked off as “visited,” the passport owner’s name was dropped in a bucket. So the more places they visited, the more likely they were to win. Three names were drawn for first second and third place prizes.
The first-place winner is Megan Hamilton, who won a pair of baseball tickets to see the Cardinals beat the Phillies.
The second-place winner is Kelley Cassans, who won a big tin Budweiser sign and a T-shirt.
The third-place winner is Lori Hutton, who won a couple different T-shirts and a Budweiser hat.
“I had a blast,” said Megan Hamilton of Alton, first-place winner of the Tavern Tour. “My favorite part was probably going to all the places that I don’t normally go to and the new places like Old Bakery Beer and Shakers. It was a lot of fun to see so many people out and about having a good time, dressed up in their flashy St. Patty’s Day accessories.”
All in all, smiles across the board when talking about the outcome of the event.
“We had great feedback from all the businesses that participated,” said McGibany. “Shakers was thrilled about the turnout and said they had so many people come in that they had never seen before and they were excited about the opportunity.”
Chris Keidel, owner of Big Muddy Pub, gave a shout out on Facebook to Alton Main Street:
“Shout out to Alton Main Street! We had an exceptional great day during your Tavern Tour at Big Muddy Pub. We chose to give away all our tickets to fun and loyal customers and they came back with great stories and huge smiles and lots of love for downtown. Thank you for hosting a great event and bringing so many more people downtown.”
Alton Main Street is hosting another pub crawl Downtown Alton for Cinco De Mayo, Tuesday May 5th. For more information on upcoming events, visit DowntownAlton.com.
