Sweets On The Streets Festival, Pub Crawl: Bel Air This Weekend

BEL AIR, MD — This weekend downtown Bel Air will be hopping.

The "Sweets on the Streets" festival featuring delicious treats and pop-up shops is happening Saturday.

The "Chocolate, Brew and Wine" tour will draw the 21-and-older crowd for a pub crawl with dessert inside participating destinations on Sunday.

Restaurants and stores will be open for business as usual during both events, according to Bel Air Downtown Alliance Marketing Director Roman Davidyuk.

"We want people up and about, exploring, seeing," Davidyuk told Patch.

Sweets on the Streets—Saturday, March 4

For Sweets on the Streets, vendors will be offering samples of their items as well as treats for purchase. There will also be tons of opportunities for shopping, with a series of pop-up shops coming into the downtown area to sell their wares, from dog charms to artworks. The event is free and is sponsored by APGFCU.

Some pop-up shops will be set up inside established businesses. Find Barks & Beads Boutique at To Wag For, (8 N. Main St.), or Salazon Chocolate Co. at the Urban Pearl Boutique (13 N. Main St).

Sweets on the Streets was an evolution of the Bel Air Chocolate and Candy Festival, held at the Bel Air Armory in years past in February. Instead of drawing people to one location for a ticketed event, Davidyuk said the Bel Air Downtown Alliance hoped to get people experiencing the town in their own way, freely.

"We want them to see Bel Air as a destination rather than a one-stop and go," Davidyuk said. "We want them to come here for a visit."

To encourage people to scope out all that Sweets on the Streets has to offer, the Bel Air Downtown Alliance is partnering with La Cakerie to host a contest for free La Cakerie cupcakes for a year. Here's how it works: Redeem stickers from businesses while traveling around to different shops on Saturday. Then, at the Bel Air Armory (37 N. Main St.), fill out a map with 13 stickers and enter to win cupcakes for a year.

The Sweets on the Streets event is in part designed to invite businesses to sample what the environment is like in downtown Bel Air, in case they may want to make it their home.

These pop-up shops will sell sweets and other items in the Bel Air Armory Marketplace as well as throughout downtown Bel Air, in some cases in vacant storefronts: Taken; Natasha’s Just Brittle; Cat’s Vintage Corner; Coloring Black Rock; Randalia Bee Hives; Dove Chocolate Discoveries/Solutionz Gourmet; GlamourHolic Curbside Fashion Truck; Kelly’s Keepsakes; Le MONADE; Breezy Hill Woodwerks; Dessert at Jessica’s; Manderbug Creations; Old, New & a Riverview; Mini’s Pastries & Confections; Taste This Cake; Mosaic Art; North East Chocolates; Wilde 4 Art; Love at First Kiss; and Kona Ice of Bel Air.

Sweets on the Streets will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. downtown on Saturday, March 4.

While Sweets on the Streets is a family-friendly and free affair, the following day, seven Bel Air businesses are hosting an adults-only tour that is ticketed.

Chocolate, Brew and Wine Tour—Sunday, March 5

"We wanted to create something that would cater more toward the adult crowd — 21 or older," Davidyuk said, adding that this was an event for which parents should leave the kids at home with a sitter. Approximately 300 people are set to attend the "Chocolate, Brew and Wine Tour," set for Sunday, March 5.

This is the second year for the tour, which sold out in its inaugural run in 2016. People can buy tickets online, which are $45. Davidyuk said many people are buying tickets in groups so they can go on the tour with others.

Those on the "Chocolate, Brew and Wine Tour" will be issued a lanyard with a badge and tickets to redeem a sweet treat and drink inside participating locations:

• Black Eyed Suzie's
• Bel Air Liquors
• Independent Brewing Company
• Looney's Pub
• MaGerk's
• Main Street Tower
• Sean Bolan's Irish Pub

"With every location you visit, you get a sticker on your badge. When you collect all seven...you will be entered to win prizes and awards — cool things like t-shirts," Davidyuk said.

People do not need to have a drink at each location to redeem stickers that will help them qualify for prizes, he noted; they just have to visit the stops on the tour.

"Every restaurant features a different kind of beer and different kind of wine," Davidyuk said. "That’s the whole point of having a tour; a tour means trying new things, experiencing things."

There will be chocolate available at La Cakerie and treats from Flavor Cupcakery, Sunny Day Cafe and Coffee Coffee set up inside some of the restaurants open for the tour. Breweries participating include the following:

• Rubber Soul Brewing at Sean Bolan's Irish Pub
• Evil Genius Beer Company at Looney's Pub - Bel Air, Maryland
• South County Brewing Co. at Black Eyed Suzie's
• Samuel Adams at Main Street Tower
• Heavy Seas Beer at MaGerk's BelAir

The tour starts at MaGerk's and is self-guided. Get tickets.

The Chocolate, Brew and Wine Tour will run from 1-7 p.m. on Sunday, March 5. Meet at MaGerk's, 120 S. Bond St., Bel Air.

File photo.