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Times Square may be best known for giant billboards, costumed Elmos and restaurants designed to feed an entire school trip at once. Next week, however, the neighborhood’s sprawling dining scene is heading outdoors for one enormous tasting event.
Taste of Times Square returns on Wednesday, September 9, bringing more than 40 food and drink vendors, live music and Broadway performances to the Crossroads of the World. Organized by the Times Square Alliance, the annual event is one of New York City’s longest-running outdoor food festivals—and this year, it is moving from its traditional Monday slot to Wednesday.
The festival will stretch along West 46th Street and Restaurant Row from Seventh to Ninth Avenues, plus the Broadway plazas between West 45th and 47th Streets. The four-hour feast runs from 4pm to 8 pm, conveniently timed for anyone looking to fill the notoriously awkward gap between a Broadway matinee and an evening performance.
“We are thrilled to put a spotlight on the quality and diversity of food offerings in Times Square with our annual Taste of Times Square,” Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, said in a statement. “For the first time ever, we are hosting the event on a Wednesday between Broadway matinees and evening performances to delight theater goers and performers between shows.”
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Participating restaurants span cuisines from Caribbean and Cuban to Mexican, Indian, Italian and American. The lineup includes Times Square and Restaurant Row stalwarts such as Becco, Carmine’s, Havana Central, Junior’s, Le Rivage, Mermaid Oyster Bar, Toloache, Tony’s Di Napoli and Virgil’s Real Barbecue. Newer and splashier names, including Brooklyn Chop House, Serendipity 3 and the revived Planet Hollywood, are also scheduled to appear.
Rather than attempting a full sit-down dinner at every restaurant, visitors can load money onto a wristband connected to a credit or debit card. Most tasting portions will cost $5, with a handful priced at $10. Advance credit packages purchased through September 8 come with a 20 percent discount.
Food will not be the only attraction. Live entertainment will include performances representing several current Broadway productions, along with appearances by the Broadway Dreams Foundation and Ellen’s Stardusters, the singing waitstaff from Ellen’s Stardust Diner.
Admission to the festival itself is free, so you can wander through without committing to a feast. But surrounded by barbecue, oysters, sushi, pasta and cheesecake, showing that kind of restraint may be Times Square’s toughest performance of the night.