a peek inside the fishbowl

1 | Jen

June 12th, 2007 at 9:55 am

What an awful experience regarding the food and drink situation. I think you where better off to have a nice BBQ at someone’s house in Westboro, have a couple of your own specialty mixed drinks and listen to the music from a couple of blocks away.

I was planning to go to Westfest this year because I couldn’t make my schedule jive with it. I am sort of glad to hear that I didn’t miss much.

2 | Rich Lafferty

June 12th, 2007 at 10:19 am

The point of Westfest hit me this year as we were walking around on Saturday. All the restaurants are the same restaurants we go to regularly, except they’re packed and on limited menus; the stores have some sale stuff out, but they’re busy and we already know the inventory of our favorite shops inside-out; it’s nice to stroll around the closed streets but I stroll down those streets every day anyhow. Westfest isn’t for Westboro, it’s about Westboro.

By comparison: I went out to a pub for St Patrick’s Day this year. I don’t know why I did, because I never do, but I had an awful time in a crowded pub. And I remembered why I don’t go out for St Patrick’s Day — that’s the day of the year when everyone else gets to be a celtophile, and they can have it. I’ll take a Monday-night session down at Rasputin’s over loud Irish Rovers covers on St Pat’s anyday.

Same thing with Westfest. It’s a good opportunity to get the rest of town into the neighbourhood and promote it and its businesses. But Westboro is at its best when it’s not under pressure like that, and I’ll let the rest of town have the neighbourhood for that weekend.

(Candice and I ended up relaxing on the patio at Caffe Mio Saturday night after we considered going to Trio for a drink and a bite and then realized that the reason we go to Trio doesn’t involve plastic patio chairs in the sun.)

3 | Anna

June 12th, 2007 at 11:01 am

Whispers apparently also shut down early on Saturday, after running out of food and drinks. They stopped taking orders for food around seven and the bar around eight.
Hopefully some of those places will do some better planning for next year.

4 | Bob LeDrew

June 12th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

We had dinner at Caffe Mio on Saturday night, and it was fiiiine. Good food, busy, but not crazy. Then walked up from Wellington & Western. Pizza probably could also have been had at Napoli’s or Donna’s too.

Sure sounds like some restaurant owners did not plan well for this. However, I had some issues with Westfest that weren’t food related — Truffle Treasures gelato filled the bill quite nicely.

I was quite disappointed with my experience of Saturday night, when I:
a) heard Lily Frost moaning vaguely
b) barely heard Lindsay Ferguson, who sounded okay, but I really couldn’t get a strong impression
c) tuned my ears forward through a thousand conversations to try to hear Kathleen Edwards.

Westfest may be on the way to ‘victim of success’ status.

At the risk of being blatantly self-promotional, I spent Friday night in my sunroom listening to Wendell Ferguson and Katherine Wheatley play, 12 feet away from me. Nirvana. Saturday night was purgatory at best. Sunday night I dropped in on another Wendell & Wheatley house show, and again — nirvana.

Maybe I’m just gettin old, but the combination of standing a quarter-mile from the performer, a crappy sound system, and people TALKING (why TALK if you’ve come to a G** D*** CONCERT PEOPLE????) leaves me cold. I wanna hear the MUSIC.

5 | liss76

June 12th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

I was annoyed about the placement of the CD Booth. It might have been okay during the day, but it was like freaking swimming upstream to get to it in the evening.

6 | marjorie

June 12th, 2007 at 9:49 pm

came across your site looking for more info on the new market a few months back… today I found it.. thought I’d pass it on now that it’s open. http://www.westboromarket.ca

7 | Miss Vicky

June 13th, 2007 at 8:53 am

We stuck to the sausage vendors for our dinner on Saturday. Left early though, as Wee G was fading. I didn’t see the Roses there this year – that’s what I normally d o for Westfest food. I think Dish would have done better if they were located further from the stage.

On Sunday we went to the Milagro Grill for a late lun ch. It was busy, but we got seated and we got food, so no disappointments here.