Bite Nite is back after its pandemic hiatus to showcase the area’s cuisine and engage the community.
The annual foodie festival, hosted by the Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce, features food, drinks and live music. The event will be from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. March 1 in the ballroom of The Nineteenth Century Club.
“As a chamber we try to do two things: connecting business to business and business to community,” said chamber executive director Darien Marion-Burton. “I see this as an opportunity for us to connect business with community.”
A $60 event ticket permits the attendee to sample food from more than 30 local vendors, access the dessert lounge, enjoy live music, and a chance to interact with local chefs. Local foodies can also pre-purchase a $35 drink ticket for five discounted wine and/or beer drinks or spend $8 per drink at the event.
Any food brand, caterer or restaurant can participate, Marion-Burton said. So far, confirmed vendors include Kettlestrings Restaurant Group, Spilt Milk, Kribi Coffee, Pretty Please Bistro and Poor Phil’s.
“I love all of our restaurants,” Marion-Burton said.
For example, president of Kettlestrings Restaurant Group Rob Guenthner said the group will bring small bites from each of its four locations. The event will feature biscuits and gravy from Kettlestrings Tavern, charcuterie bites from Kettlestrings Grove, meatballs from Betty’s Pizza & Pasta and a broccoli-bacon dish from Starship Restaurant & Catering.
Ticket holders can enjoy an unlimited number of bites at the event, said Guenthner, who is also president of the board of directors of the OPRF Chamber of Commerce.
“It should be a great night with a lot of different things to try,” he said.
Bite Nite samples in 2020. Courtesy of Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce 
Bite Nite samples in 2020. Courtesy of Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce 
Bite Nite samples in 2020. Courtesy of Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce 
Bite Nite samples in 2020. Courtesy of Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce 
Bite Nite samples in 2020. Courtesy of Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce
Bite Nite is an opportunity to showcase diverse restaurants and vendors in Oak Park, River Forest and the surrounding community, Guenthner said. January and February can be slow months for these businesses, he said, so it’s an opportunity for vendors to get their name out there and have people try new food.
“I hope that everybody that comes has an opportunity to try something from a restaurant that they haven’t dined at before,” Guenthner said. “That’s the purpose behind it … to give people a chance to try things that maybe they’ve overlooked in the past.”
Proceeds from the event will go toward the OPRF Chamber of Commerce, Marion-Burton said, because membership dues aren’t enough to sustain all of its programs.
The last Bite Nite was in 2020, Marion-Burton said, and stopped because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s exciting to be able to bring those events back and support local businesses again, he said.
“Oak Park is a very special place in that most of the business owners live here and most of the people that live here like to support local businesses,” he said. “We’re facilitating that connection through this event.”
Roughly 175 tickets have been purchased so far, Marion-Burton said, and about 350-400 foodies are expected to attend the event.
“I hope people see [Bite Nite] as a return to normalcy,” Guenthner said. “I hope people come out and enjoy themselves.”