Out to Lunch Kicks Off its 20th Season

By Scott Poniewaz, 6-01-05

	TOP: Dalene Withycombe, a volunteer with Out to Lunch for about 15 years, serves free cake to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Wednesday event. BOTTOM: ShoDown performs during this Summer's kickoff Out to Lunch, which brought rain, but not enough to scare people away. Photos by Scott Poniewaz/New West

Twenty-eight music acts, 31 vendors, 3,500 to 4,000 people per week, 14 weeks, and 20 years in the making. The Missoula Downtown Association (MDA) kicked off their 20th annual Out to Lunch season today in Caras Park with 14 cakes for attendees, donated by local grocery stores. Though the sun never broke, people still rallied to sample Missoula’s variety of cuisine and catch the sounds of Jack Gladstone and ShoDown.

This summer’s Out to Lunch will be featuring a little more than just cake to celebrate, including a monthly Celebration Sponsorship giveaway. June features two season tickets to the Missoula Osprey ball games, July features a golf weekend at Grouse Mountain Lodge near Whitefish, and August could get you two season tickets for Griz basketball. Each is donated by a local sponsor.

While these are a few added perks to attend this summer, Linda McCarthy, executive director of the MDA, said it is otherwise business as usual. “It takes a miniature army to put this together,� McCarthy said. Dalene Withycombe, an Out to Lunch volunteer for almost 15 years, said her favorite thing about Out to Lunch is “being with all of these people and seeing how much work it took to put together and how much the people enjoy it.�

With the weekly Wednesday event growing over the years, the MDA felt the need to create Downtown ToNight, a weekly Thursday evening event as a way to alleviate the pressure at Out to Lunch. “It’s a more laid back, its the kind of event you can bring families to," McCarthy added, "You can come and don’t necessarily have to buy dinner."

Wednesdays in Caras Park are a great mix of people, from college kids playing hacky-sack to local businesspeople holding meetings over lunch. Each has their favorites. Kyle Bert, a server at the Hob Nob who recently moved into Missoula, prefers Tipu’s.

“Its cool, I guess its kind of a slow start with the cold weather though,� Bert said about the event.

Last year’s Out to Lunch season brought in about $184,000 for the vendors across 13 dates, so with this year’s season kicking off June 1 and finishing up on August 31, Missoulians get 14 days to celebrate under the Big Sky sun.

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