Afternoon Delight

Rays of sunlight peeked through the trees on Park Avenue, falling upon visitors as they perused downtown. All along Park Avenue, business doors are propped wide-open and chalkboard signs on the sidewalk welcome customers to come inside.

The Sip, Shop & Stroll, organized by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce and Park Avenue Merchants Association, has become a fun quarterly event for visitors to enjoy a glass of wine and take in what downtown has to offer. The most recent event was held Thursday, June 8.

The main goal of the wine walk, said Ally Stricker, director of events for the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, is to get visitors to explore the downtown area, which in turn would lead to people supporting the local economy. 

“We want to bring people on to Park Avenue to be able to see what the Park Avenue merchants have to offer the community,” Stricker said. “We want people to see the beauty that Winter Park has to offer.”

Some participants grabbed a glass of wine and enjoyed sitting out on benches under the shade of trees, while others took a casual stroll down up and down Park Avenue.

 “This is our first one,” said David Alderman, who was taking in the wine walk with his wife, Suzie. “What we really have found is that there are restaurants where we really enjoy the food, so we’re going to go visit those.”

Visiting from Boston, Paula Burns and her friend, Deborah Hayes, stumbled upon the wine walk after they decided to make a quick stop to the area.

“We just parked the car and asked the girl if this was a tasting, and she told us it was a sip and stroll, so we just went off and found it,” Burns said. “We knew that’s what we would like — it’s a good concept.”