It has been too long! Way too long!
No Dinner on the Avenue in 2020 or 2021 due to, well, you know. And then last year, it didn't happen again because of inclement weather!
To say LOTS are primed and ready for Dinner on the Avenue 2023 would be a significan understatement.
Personally, years ago I dubbed Dinner on the Avenue the night when Winter Park lets her hair down, dances on tables. Yes, maybe even literally, at moments, but in general that is meant to capture the prevailing feeling of the night. If you have never attended, expect this: 1) AMAZING creativity from your friends & neighbors, 2) FUN.
For some, Dinner on the Avenue is planned for many months if not an entire year in advance. I have been included in groups which had so much fun the night of the event, they immediately wanted to schedule a post mortem, combined with brainstorming for the next year.
A major fan of this unique Winter Park evening, I began thinking about my own favorite tables over the years. The night early on becomes such a lava lamp of excitement I do not always get the photos I would have liked to capture. Wine, laughing, joking, talking, it always goes by too fast! Which makes taking photos that much more important.
My own tastes for the evening a majorly biased toward the funny & unique. There are often lots of LUVly tabletops, as well, but I like to laugh! So, keep that in mind as you peruse below.
Here, for veterans and novices alike, my own stab at a Top 10 tables from over roughly the last decade.
No. 10 - A Head in the Crowd!
Over the years there have been many groups which have done these clever painting / tropy type themes, their heads poking through a work of art, a wall mount. These were two of my favorites and I couldn't decide between them for this number 10 spot. The taxadermy mounts make the laugh but the art group did such an amazing job incorporating their clothing to go along with the specific painting. Pretty sure this is the same group which appears in two other slots below.
No. 9 - Stranger Things
Any group seeking to make a Dinner on the Avenue theme happen will have to decide on the best ways to make their theme into a visual reality. Some ideas can seem obvious. Others, no, not so much. There have been two groups of the years I can remember doing a 'Stranger Things' theme. Both were similar, genius. The stringing of the Christmas lights, the connection of the letters immediately evokes images from the last scenes of Season 1. Clever, fun, an entire show encapsulated into one super smart image!
No. 8 - Sharknado
The year these guys showed up I was certain they would win an award. They did not! BUT, they won over my "don't go into the water" 70s-kid imagination with their delivery on the Syfy Channel serial hit movies about 'Sharknados'! It's a movie so immediately campy, it was a Dinner on the Avenue natural and these peeps did an AMAZING job! Big cone tornado on the table with Bargie & Ken body parts all around, mutliple sharks in the midst of their evening meal. It was so good! As I remember, these guys own the Local Mellow Mushroom restaurant on Aloma, so they know how to serve hungry mouths!
No. 7 - Marionettes
There are a few groups you expect to see every year at Dinner on the Avenue. You know them prior years, you are excited to see what they will literally bring to their table. Pretty sure one member of this group appears in the "painting" above. And, yes, you will be seeing them further below, as well. They year they did the marionettes was amazing. Terrific makeup and great outfits, but it truly all came together because of those strings, connecting to the wooden handles above. Whatever they do, they always do it so dang well!
No. 6 - Downton Abbey
Again, always interesting how someone makes something with which you are already familiar come to life some place completely different. At Number 6, these people were amazing with their Downton Abbey Costumes, but the large cardboard cutout of Highclere Castle brought it all together. The Dowager Lady Grantham, Mr. Carlson and Mrs. Hughes were PERFECTION!
No. 5 - Carnival Cruise Dead In The Water
Years ago in January or February, a Carnival Cruise Ship floated at sea, all power lost. That same year in April, Locals decided to make that their theme for Dinner on the Avenue. They were dancing, drinking, handing out vouchers for future sailings. Many of them had toilet paper on their costumes, and every deck was now called the "poop deck". I remember laughing so hard I thought was might be having an aneurysm! Some of the best themes are related to absurd news stories, present themselves just in time in the months or weeks before the event. I LUV to laugh and this night I laughed a lot!
No. 4 - The Wolf of Winter Park . . . . & company!
One year, there were two tables of nothing but guys in ties, suspenders. They were situated next to two tables of women, all dressed as Pan Am Flight Attendants. THAT table was amazing and they all looked incredible. But The Wolf of Winter Park tables, those guys had legs. Two of those legs belonged to the blow up doll on the stripped poll adjacent to their tables. Dinner on the Avenue occurs over 4 hours but it can be like 3 events. The first stage is the frantic setup, everyone rushing to their tables and making their theme into a reality. Then, there's the fine-tuning, settling in, waiting for the judges and entertaining passersby as they comment and look at your table. And then, there's stage 3. That's when the drinks have fully kicked in and the tables are no longer oil and water. Groups are moving about, merging here and there, posing for pictures, enjoying the tables of others. And sometimes, I guess, the stripper pole of others. Down the way from The Wolf of Winter Park was a table doing 'Once Upon A Time', the television show. That evening, as everyone went free range, I got Mary Poppins, Jiminy Cricket, Prince Charming, Cruella De Ville and Snow White -- as well as quite a few Sharknados -- dancing on that stripper poll and it became the highlight of the evening!
No. 3 - Breaking Bad
The only team on the list to which I have a direct connection. I stopped fully participating years ago, as I am so rarely at my own table, off free range taking in the creativity, intereacting with its creators. But this year, for Breaking Bad, included friends and, as Heisenberg, my own life partner. He was born for this role! We had neighbors at the time who created the amazing two sides sign. The husband of that duo showed up in a clear plastic bag with light blue cubes. Hmmmmmm. 🙂 Hey, it was breaking bad! Our table was a hoot, with bady doll, money tossed about and beakers with dry ice! In the words of Michael Jackson: Who's Bad? We were and we were good at it, winning best TV / Movie theme that year!
No. 2 - Lucy in the Chocolate Factory
This is the table which lead me to fall in LUV with Dinner on the Avenue. It was the first time we ever attended and here, at the south end, two tables. The wives were all dressed as Lucille Ball in the iconic chocolate factory episode, the husbands all as the male character overseeing her work. The costumes were hysterical and wonderful but what blew us away was that they had a working conveyor belt on the table! You could actually walk by and take a piece of chocolate! It was SUPERB!!!!
No. 1 - Trophy Wives
These ladies do such an amazing job each and every year. But there was one year which was a perfect 10 across the board, from original / clever concept to perfect execution to GOLD! All over. Yes, my No. 1 has to be the year they did 'Trophy Wives'. Each woman, painted in gold from head to toe, standing atop a pedestal, moving as a mime in a popular square, acting out their individual "trophy" story. There was a tennis player, baseball, weightlifter. Each standing atop her pedestal, delightfully entertaining onlookers as they past. So clever and so amazingly brought to reality! Well done . . . . you ladies deserve a trophy!
