Good locations/neighborhoods for a (walkable) food crawl?

I'm helping plan an alumni event and it crossed my mind that some sort of food crawl on a weeknight or Sunday would be fun in the spirit of some of the LTHForum *-a-thons.

The question is... where? What neighborhood/street has a high density of places that wouldn't mind a large group walking in, ordering a few dishes, and moving on? What are the general mechanics of making an -a-thon work?

I'm not too familiar with past LTHForum -a-thons so I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

Convenience to public transit is particularly important since it's likely several of the attendees with be without a car.

This Kedzie Kaper thread might be all you need.

Clark a Thon 1 and Clark a Thon 2 were both fun, and the Howard or Jarvis L stops aren't far.

Roughly how large will the group be? How far are people willing to walk? How much time will you have?

mresolver wrote:What are the general mechanics of making an -a-thon work?

These may be obvious points, but Hellodali and I have learned these lessons again and again in planning our tours for LTH and Fork and the Road:

1. Verify by calling that the places you plan to visit will be open on the day and time of your visit. (Don't just check online for business hours.)

2. Call each stop well in advance and the day/or morning before your visit to verify: number of people, if you can get a reserved table(s), approximate time of arrival and stay (if you need to depart by a certain time), what you might be ordering (especially if you're just sampling; you want to be clear with the restaurant that your party won't be having a full meal) and accepted payment methods (Will everyone be paying separately? Does the restaurant take credit cards? Which credit cards?).

3. Make a list of the stops including addresses, phone numbers, website URLs, estimated timing, the phone numbers of organizers and parking/transit directions/costs to the first stop to share before your crawl. Make photocopies of this list to distribute on the day of the event. Depending on how participants are paying for food on the crawl, you may also want to include how much money each person can expect to spend at each stop, noting whether tax/tip/beverages are included or not.

4. If you want to get really crazy, attach a map to the aforementioned list.

5. If possible, walk, bike or drive the route you plan on taking before the day of the crawl. It's summer; sidewalks and roads get torn up. It's usually easy to detour on foot, but with a group, it's good to know where you're going.

Then, of course, there are the questions to ask for any group food outing, about allergies, wheelchair access, etc. Good luck!

The number of attendees and how long the event will last are likely be the most important variables here. For a group larger than maybe 8ish, I would definitely recommend pre-ordering. The chaos that would ensue if a larger group stopped in and first had to decide what (and how much) to order, being accommodated for seating, dealing with the bill, etc. would probably frustrate both the establishments and the group. If you picked the "best' dish or two (and maybe even a beverage for those spots that aren't BYO) from each of 5-6 places, you'd likely have a very entertaining evening.

Areas...
Wicker park Multi-culti: Big Star, Taxim, Cumin, Tocca)
Broadway/Argyle tour of Asia (Sun Wah, Tank, Furama (dim sum), one of the pastry places
Western and Lincoln area for taste of Thai (Spoon, Sticky Rice, Roseded, Opart (meh compared to the others but good for the ameri-thai faves...)

Other areas you might want to look around in, depending on what part of town you'd like to focus on would be Logan Square, West Town/Uke Village, Devon...

have fun and let us know what you ended up doing!

Ditto what happy_stomach said. Also, here is the link to the Devon-a-thon I planned several years ago which includes some back and forth on logistics-type questions I was considering that may be helpful to you in your planning.

Devon-a-thon I

Don't forget Andersonville, the Korean areas near Lawrence & Milwaukee, Chinatown, and Uptown/Little Vietnam. Or you could do a cupcake and sushi crawl in Lakeview...