The West End Business Association continues to look for ways to raise the visibility of West End businesses with its returning festival in a larger-than-ever format.
Best of the West will return for a third year from 12-6 p.m. Saturday, June 6 in Ben Brenman Park (4800 Brenman Park Drive) in the Cameron Station neighborhood. The free event will have restaurants and other business vendors, community organization booths, a Port City Brewing Company beer garden, arts and crafts and a live music stage. Ben Brenman Drive will be closed for booths leading up to the park’s gazebo.
James Lewis, the current vice president of the West End Business Association, told ALXnow the move to Ben Brenman Park was due to the event tripling in size. Past events were held inside Patrick Henry Recreation Center.
As the West End is more spread out than the core business districts in Old Town and Del Ray, promoting businesses at events like Best of the West is essential for the association.
“You might have two or three retail stores next to a specialty coffee shop next to a restaurant. That is next to another restaurant that’s also a store that sells DJ equipment. That’s really what we get on the West End,” Lewis said. “We do have a good number of what they call flexible office spaces on the West End too. And so we have a lot of those businesses that are not necessarily the traditional brick and mortar that you can walk into, so we wanted to create an opportunity for those types of businesses to have a moment.”
Unlike in the past, the festival isn’t planning to have a contest for best restaurant tastes. Lewis cited the varied offerings from participating restaurants — either tastings or items for sale.
The business association also hosts weekly networking events and coordinates with the city to host meetings on West End planning topics such as Duke Street in Motion. It is also partnering with Port City Brewing Company to host a Pride in the West End event on June 19.
Another topic of interest for the business association is the growth of retail spaces with new mixed-use development in the Duke and Beauregard Street corridors. While Cameron Station provides a hub for events like Best of the West now, the WestEnd development replacing the former Landmark Mall has potential to be a new focal point of the West End.
“Given the Inova component and all of the medical offices up there, do people think about it differently — ‘oh, this is the place I go to the doctors in the hospital,’ or are people going to see the area with community gathering space and the ice skating rink as, ‘oh, this is a place to gather,”‘ Lewis said. “I think it really just becomes people’s perceptions of what the space is, and I think we’re excited about it.”
Best of the West 2023 images via West End Business Association/Facebook
