Atlanta art and music lovers flock to Grant Park to bid adieu to summer at the Grant Park Summer Shade Festival. This year’s festival, like so many things in our new COVID-19 (coronavirus) world, has a bit of a new twist. The reimagined Summer Shade Festival offers an unFestival format, to keep everyone safe. Follow on Facebook for alerts and information.
The Grant Park Summer Shade Festival is an annual fundraiser for the Grant Park Conservancy (GPC), a non-profit, membership-based organization committed to the restoration, renovation, beautification and maintenance of historic Grant Park.
The 2021 Summer Shade unFestival is a “season” long event! Look for fun events such as: beer, wine and bourbon sales, T-shirts, raffles, Adams Realtors Run for the Park Virtual 5K, Benefit Music Nights, Cocktails for the Park at Zoo Atlanta and Food-o-Rama Food Truck Festival with a portion of alcohol sales benefitting GPC.
Adams Realtors Run for the Park
Registrations for the best neighborhood 5K, the Adams Realtors Run for the Park opens August 2. “Race at your own pace” the weekend of August 28 and 29 (the traditional Summer Shade Festival weekend). Purchase unFestival t-shirts designed by local artist Nate Tavel and raffle tickets for fabulous local goodies from shops and restaurants.
Beer, Wine & Bourbon Sales
Drink (responsibly) in August to benefit the Grant Park Conservancy! My Friend’s Bottle Shop has a limited number of barrel-picked bottles of ASW Distillery bourbon specially selected for SSF, 3 Parks Wine Shop brings back Summer Shade 3-Pack Wine Packs and Eventide and Elsewhere Brewing are concocting special brews perfect for the hot Atlanta summer.
Events at Grant Park
Sip a cold one at Eventide Brewing on Friday, August 20 for a special benefit show featuring the Yes Ma’am Band. If you like barbecue, this event is for you as it includes a full pig roast! Cool off with Eventide Summer Shade Pale Ale! Portions of ticket sales and beer purchases benefit the Grant Park Conservancy.
Grant Park turns into a bike race track to host the Grant Park Criterium on Saturday, August 21. Referred to as “the Crit,” this is a big deal. As part of the Speedweek series, over 100 of the fastest racers in the country participate including the 2021 women’s national champion!
Saturday, August 28 from noon to 8 p.m., Street Food Coalition and Atlanta Creative Events hosts Food-o-Rama, an original food truck extravaganza. Food trucks from all over the Southeastern United States are accompanied by non-food vendors, alcohol vendors and live entertainment. More information about Food-o-Rama here.
The 20th annual Summer Shade Festival is planned for August 2022!
Location
Historic L.P. Grant Park – Park Avenue/Berne Street Intersection
537 Park Avenue, Atlanta GA 30312
About Grant Park
Grant Park celebrates as the city’s oldest public park. Initially established by a gift of 100 acres from the estate of railroad magnate Lemuel Pratt Grant in 1883, Grant Park was once referred to as a resort area due to its natural flowing springs, carriage trails, shaded walking paths and big beautiful trees. Today, Grant Park welcomes more than 2 million visitors each year. The park occupies over 430 acres of rolling terrain in southeast Atlanta. The majority of the structures in the Grant Park neighborhood are residential, but the area also includes the school buildings, churches, neighborhood commercial clusters and recreational buildings. Grant Park neighborhood is designed with a grid street pattern and narrow rectangular lots. The streets are lined with mature trees and there is an extensive sidewalk system, portions of which are the original brick. Due to the topography, retaining walls are an important landscape feature.
Grant Park is known for its Victorian mansions and Craftsman-style bungalows. Large two-story mansions face the park, more modest two-story, modified Queen Anne, frame dwellings are located on surrounding streets. And one-story Victorian-era cottages and Craftsman bungalows predominate the streets to the east of the park. Its namesake park is laced with walking trails and home to Zoo Atlanta, with popular panda and tiger exhibits. Nearby Oakland Cemetery has ornate monuments and the graves of notable Atlantans, like “Gone With the Wind” writer Margaret Mitchell. Young locals gather on Memorial Drive for Tex Mex, noodles and pub fare.
Grant Park provides a respite for the city dweller as a place for recreation and amusement. The neighborhood’s retention of its street patterns, landscape architecture, and public amenities from its formative period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries contributes to the historic environment making Grant Park one of Atlanta’s most valuable and significant early residential districts.
*** Photo Credit: Grant Park Conservancy