It actually gets better every year by means of the participants and quality of food and wine. This year was just as fun as last though considering the company of my friends. We all pile into an Uber, head to downtown Mt. View City Hall square and check ourselves in. From there, we preambulate down Castro street tasting with our goody bags. First stop, grab a bite and a taste of wine. Then get your card stamped. If there's no food, there's at least wine. That would pertain to participants like the spa and bookstore. Once you have the required 10 stamps, you can keep going or turn your card in for a drawing to win something like a gift certificate to a restaurant. It's a cute, fun activity to participate in during the week with your significant other, friends or family after work. There's a great turn out every year and jovial vibes. They served more food this year. So we didn't head to dinner afterwards. See you there next year! read more

My +1 and I had a great time attending Taste of Mountain View 2026, thanks to Yelp Peninsula and Mountain View Chamber of Commerce! (Shout out to our fantastic Peninsula CM Paolo for obliging when I asked if anyone dropped out of the event and to Marisol for getting us signed up without issue. This year, tons of great restaurants and businesses participated! As someone who visits Castro street a good 2-3x a week, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a whole bunch of new places I've never stopped in before! Our overlooked gem of this year was Mediterranean Grill House, which offered some great tea and Turkish delight, and I definitely want to stop by here again for some good coffee and treats! Who knew it was tucked away on the far end of Castro street?? Top food samples came from St Stephen's Green (I had no idea they had Irish stew here!) Eureka (cheese balls were delish) and generous slices of pizza from Blue Line, one of my favorite deep dish spots! All of the business owners and event staff working each booth / winery / restaurant were super friendly, and it was overall such a great vibe walking up and down the block, wine in hand, as the sun set over balmy 70 degree weather. A perfect night thanks to MTV and Yelp- thank you again so much and I'm definitely telling everyone I know to sign up for this event next year! read more

Taste of Mountain View - 2026 offerings- we had such a great time!! - Festivals Near Me - Mountain View, California

A self guided event on a walking tour to explore the business on Castro street . You got a map for 15 restaurants to visit and try their food or drinks .. First we checked in at the register counter in front of the city hall . We received a tote bag with coupons and a plastic wine glass . We used the same glass to try all the wines and beers for the festival. They have ice water to drink and rinse your glass. Most of the business have food and drink , a few have drinks ( alcohol) only . There was a live band performance in front of the city hall . The music and the band looked cool . The restaurants we enjoyed the most were : St. Stephen 's Green : Sheppard pie tasted excellent and we tried 5 different beers . The staffs were very cheerful and friendly and made conversation with us . Pokeworks : right next to St. Stephen 's Green . One line they served wines and the other line they served pokes . I love the freshness and flavor of the mini poke samples . They have salmon , tuna , chicken , Toft , etc . Mediterranean Grill House : Inside was clean and spacious. Lots of ready to go food ( bakery , dessert ) . I enjoyed their colorful dessert and the Sana ' A Yemeni tea . The temperature and the spice was great combo. Love to return for meals . Ava 's downtown market , Simply savor & poke bar : the poke are fresh and lots of varieties . Mexican pull pork tastes great and wine sections . The whole event was from 4 pm to 8 pm . It was a nice walk and enjoyable . read more

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It was a beautiful evening in Mountain View with my little sister. There were some true highlights and surprises and we came away with a great perspective on what Castro Street in Mountain View has to offer in terms of restaurants and particularly outdoor dining. Although my sister was the designated driver,the portions of food were not enough to offset the generous pours of pinot noir, pinot grigio and cabernet. I was a little loopy after 15 tastes and glasses of wine. Of note were the Turkish Delight and delightful tea at the Mediterranean stop. Poke and pulled pork as well as delicious wines at Ava's Downtown Market, the Popcorn chicken with plum powder and mandarin tea at Ume( one of my favorites to find almost anywhere), the brussel sprouts and beer tasting at Eureka, different poke's at Asian Box and the yummy but too small shepherds pie at St Steven's Pub. I am not a pub frequenter and make my own Shepherds Pie, but the vibe here and small taste convinced us that we need to come back with a group. In our opinion, the best stop was probably the truffle pizza at Blue Line. By the this me we stopped st Blue Line, we were thinking that we needed some substantial food to soak up some of the alcohol that we had consumed. We ordered a small truffle pizza to go after we tasted a square. Their deep dish Chicago Chop is a go to, but the thin crust truffle pizza served at Taste of Mountain View changed our go to order. I had received the tickets as a Yelp Elite Raffle winner, so I attended for free. The three star review is based on market price of $70 per ticket- For me the price was a bit steep, but Ali snd I are not big drinkers. If one were to partake of all the alcohol offered, there was a significant bang for your buck sit read more

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The idea behind the event was solid, but some parts didn't quite match up. The map showed three "food + drink" spots--but all three served only drinks. Similarly, two "food only" locations offered both food and drinks. Since I had a food + drink ticket, it didn't bother me--but if someone bought a "food only" ticket, they'd miss out or be confused. Some of the booths were thoughtfully set up and offered tasty experiences, while others felt less polished. The portion sizes were very small--just a couple of bites or a sip of drink--which felt more like samples than a proper tasting. As a complimentary guest, I wasn't disappointed--but if I'd paid for it, I probably would've felt underwhelmed. The experience didn't quite match what a paid ticket might suggest. It also felt a bit odd to see a winery stand at a bookstore that didn't seem connected to Mountain View. That felt off-theme and reminded me the event could benefit from a stronger local focus. A little fine-tuning would go a long way: clearer map labels, better alignment between ticket types and offerings, and slightly more substantial tastings. The concept is great, and with a bit more attention to execution, this could be a very enjoyable event. read more

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This is the fourth year that I got to go to this event. The event is very well organized and since it starts at 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon, there is plenty of parking. If you start at 4, there are not many people around and there no lines for the wine/beer tasting or the food. You have to check in a City Hall and get your bag, which has a plastic glass, a list of participating restaurants, a passport on which you have to get stamps at the places you sampled at and you then enter to win a gift card, a beer opener (a gift from Yelp, one of the sponsors of the event), a plate and fork and napkin. The great thing about this event is that unlike most wine walks where there is only alcohol, here is a sample of food at almost every restaurant. It may be samples but they add up to fill you up and balances out the alcohol. There were cheese fries, calamari (a generous portion), hummus and pita, poke, sausage, tacos, fruit kebabs to name a few. We started at the end instead of the first place after you check in and that way, you are going in the opposite direction of the crowd and avoiding the lines. The event goes till 8pm and you see more people after 5:30. The price is $70 but you get what you pay for with the number of vendors. Since I only drink white wine, I did not taste the red wine, beer or mixed drinks like margaritas but some places had multiple bottles of different wine open and you could taste them all if wanted. Great event and I look forward to next years event! read more

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A cool event with a couple dozen different businesses participating. The ones that participate offer tastings of wine/beer and some will also offer some bites of food off their menu. Even the non-food businesses like a book store or clothing store would have some tastings available. It was a great way to try different items and drink vendors and mark down which ones you wanted to bring your business back to. The volunteer staff were great about getting people checked in - everyone got a goodie bag which came with a tasting glass, a tasting plate, and utensils. The goodie bags were color coded based on what type of ticket you had purchased- either a food only one or a food and drink one. At each business, they had a water jug where you could wash out your glass before participating in the next tasting. If you visited at least 10 businesses and collected stamps at each one, you could enter to win a drawing for a Mountain View gift card. I don't think the amount of food you get is enough to make up a meal so I wouldn't come super hungry. Or you could go back to one of the businesses afterwards for dinner. read more

Thank you to Yelp for tickets to this event! We arrived right around 4 PM and were able to find street parking right near the check in point. There was no line for check in and we were able to get through all of the stands in about 2.5 hours. We each got a tote bag with a plate and utensils, and each got a plastic wine glass. There was a little bit of confusion as I think the colors of the drink only/food and drink icons on the map they provided in the tote bags weren't correct. Because of that, we started where we thought there would be food and drink, but our first 4 stops ended up only having drinks. So we were feeling a bit tipsy already after only a few stops! I would say the overall experience was about 60% wine/drinks and 40% food. The bites that we had were enjoyable, but I do wish that there were more food options. While I wasn't hungry anymore by the end, I definitely also wasn't full. My favorites were the shepards pie at St Stephen's Green, the Mac and cheese balls at Eureka, the baklava and chai from 1 oz coffee, and the cocktails at Monte Carlo. While I'm very grateful to have gotten these tickets for free, I didn't feel like I was able to drink and eat enough to get my moneys worth if I had bought the ticket. Despite a bit of confusion, I think it was still a well-organized event. I would go again if there were some more vendors that offered a bit more food. read more

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Even though I used to live in MV, this was my first time checking out this event. Getting to MV downtown and checking in were super smooth. After acquainting ourselves with the participating spots, we started making our crawl through downtown. Along the way, we sampled some tasty light bites and a heavy load of various wines and drinks. My one critique is that the even is a bit lopsided with way more booze than actual food. So like many others we knew, we got a heavy empty stomach buzz and got way too tipsy. Other than this, the event was really fun. From the vendors to the attendees, everyone we met were so friendly and warm! read more

Taste of Mountain View - Map of Participating Locations - Festivals Near Me - Mountain View, California

Loved the concept, but the execution could've been better! Our food-only tickets were $45/person on Eventbrite, and the food and wine tickets were more expensive ($65 I think). The event took place on a Wednesday from 4PM to 8PM, and we arrived a little after 6PM. The check-in process was quick and smooth, although they weren't very attentive with verifying the tickets or ticket types. Once we had our wristbands and swag bags, we checked out the map, which conveniently displayed the participating businesses. Unfortunately, some of the businesses had already run out of food, only halfway through the event. Others had extremely long lines, mostly because the wine pouring was taking a while. Our favorite stop was Ludwig's, which had incredible Mac & Cheese Balls. Pokeworks, Oren's Hummus, and Alexander's Patisserie were also strong contenders. Most places only offered one type of food to sample, so I wouldn't recommend this event for people with dietary restrictions. We stayed until the end and visited nearly all the participating businesses, but still left slightly hungry. The food and wine tickets may have been a better value, but what we got didn't seem worth the $45. Still a good time though! read more

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Won tickets thanks to yelp to attend the 2024 Taste of Mountain View event! The event is well structured, organized, and welcoming. I arrived at 4:24pm and didn't finish the event until 8:30pm. You check in at the MV city hall where you show your ID & they'll check off your name on a piece of paper. Depending on the tickets you bought, you'll received a purple bag if you have a food only ticket, and an orange bag if you have a food & drink ticket. Inside the bag, there's a few goodies, but the two most important ones are the passport and the list of businesses. With the passport, you received a stamp every time you visit each business. Once you get 10 stamps, you can write your name, phone #, and email to enter the raffle. In the list, it shows 19 businesses that you can check off during your walk and received a drink or a food sample. It was a really fun event and I got to enjoy majority of the food & drink samples. There were two restaurants that were out of food to try though. All of the samples were small, but they were filling as I finish the event. read more

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It was a fun experience, but the quantity of food was lacking. There was quite amount of wine and beer, which is great. My only wish is that I ate beforehand. We sometimes had to wait for food to be delivered to us. read more

Thanks to Yelp I won 2 food & drink tickets to this year's Taste of Mountain View event. This is a cool event where you can sample food and wine from participating vendors along Castro street in Mt. View. The event was well organized, and the map showed you exactly where to go. We arrived just as the event started at 4pm, and visited every single vendor, and left around 7:30pm. The vibe was really chill and all the vendors were welcoming. There weren't many people around 4pm so we got through the first few businesses quickly, but the lines started growing around 6pm. There was plenty of street parking at 4pm, so I definitely recommend coming early. Upon arriving, we checked in at City Hall plaza, where there was a band playing classic rock. We quickly got our wristbands, and were off. There were definitely more wine tasting than food tasting. If you don't drink (like me), I'd recommend bringing a water bottle because very few businesses offered water. Overall, I was very impressed by almost all the food. These are the food stand-outs... + 1 oz Coffee - they had this huge plate of sweet fried dough balls that reminded me of malasadas. It was near the end of the evening and they still had plenty left, so they gave us about 4-5 of these delicious, addicting dough balls. Probably our favorite bite of the evening. + Eureka - their fried mac & cheese balls were delish, and so were their Brussels sprouts with balsamic glaze. + Pokeworks - they served 3 different poke samples and each were so good. There was salmon, tuna, and tofu over rice. Each was slightly sweet and really, really fresh. + Oren's Hummus - wow they gave us a whole plate of hummus with pita and falafel. Their hummus is thick and smooth. + Savvy Cellar Wine Bar - they served pizza bites. I think the pizzas were fresh tomatoes over creamy mozzarella - so good. + St. Stephens Green - they had shepherd's pie samples. It was almost like a meatloaf with mashed potatoes on top. Very good. + Ludwig's - they served vegan "meatballs". I was skeptical, but was amazed by the flavor and texture. It was very mushroomy with pretzel dough in a savory gravy. + Red Rock Coffee - they had amazing desserts: fudgy brownie and apricot square. Everything was sample size, but I was pretty full by the end of the evening. This was a really fun event, and I even found a few trinkets to purchase. One was a cute little plant from Ava's Downtown Market. Thank you Yelp for inviting me. read more

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I was very fortunate to have won a pair of tickets via Yelp Elite raffle, so it pains me heavily to write this review. Coming from someone with years of large event planning experience, I know how much work goes into coordinating an event of this scale, but there was a lot of pieces that were poorly executed that made this experience quite subpar. 1. Participating businesses. 2+ weeks before the event, their website and Eventbrite stated it would have 20-30 participating business, and would be announced soon. First, leading up to the event, we never did find out the businesses. 30 min after the event, neither site has updated with this information (still said announced soon). Anyway, I figure that's okay, 20-30 businesses should cover most of downtown MTV, and looking at previous years' businesses, we were excited of what's to come and who would participate. What *was* silently updated however was that there were now "up to 20" businesses (19 in total). I feel like anyone who purchased the tickets ($35 food/$65 beverage) got a little shafted here. 2. Check-in points. Leading up to the event, both Eventbrite and stated on our ticket PDFs indicated there were two check-in points for wristbands, one on each side of DT-MTV. Again, silently updated on Eventbrite was now one check-in point under that check-in point section, but if you read in the details, it says there will be "live music at the two check in locations". And of course if you, like me, read the event details days ahead of time and/or simply referred to event details on your ticket, you would not know this. We did not receive any comms about this change either. So my husband and I dragging 2 toddlers went to one of the supposed check-in points, only to learn there's actually only one check-in point now, and it's allllllllll the way on the other side. We parked the car at 6:32pm, and by the time we walked to the non-existent check-in point to the only actual one, we didn't get to start the event experience well until 7pm. 3. Food offerings. I *think* if you were there for alcohol tasting, it *might* have been worth your time and money. However, if you were only there for food, you had 11/19 vendors offering something to eat. Sample sizes at most vendors were incredibly small (pizza samples were 1x1 inch, some food served in condiment cups). By 7pm, a lot of food was out and wait times to replenish were long (we went in to get pizza, got the last 2/3 slices on the pan where one slice was half crust and no pepperoni, and when we came back 10 min later to try and get better slices, they still hadn't come out with more samples. Other vendors I ended up waiting 5-6 minutes for more samples to come out). Samples offered were some of their cheapest menu items (chicken congee, hummus with 2 tiny slices of pita, pepperoni pizza, etc). Many samples were also quite cold or stale by this time (I broke my plastic fork trying to stab a crepe, pizza grease congealed). We were given a little flack from some vendors if we wanted more than 1 sample per person. Oren's Hummus also had an amusing disproportionate amount of hummus to the two tiny slices of pita, and upon requesting more pita, we were told to buy more at the counter (I'm already paying $35+ for the food samples so telling me to spend more is baffling to me). 4. Inclusion. There were very little non-alcoholic options. I believe only 3 businesses offered non-alcoholic drinks (water, coffee, mocktail, kombucha). This was not friendly for people who abstain from alcohol for a number of reasons (recovering alcoholic, religious, pregnant, allergies, personal choice, etc). A few vendors who did offer these non-alcoholic drinks did not provide cups, meaning if you did not purchase the $65 beverage ticket, you didn't get a swag cup, and thus did not have the ability to pour and enjoy hydration into a container. Only 7/11 businesses offering food had vegetarian options. If you're missing out on 36% of food samples, it seems a little unfair that your ticket price is not any different. Overall, we had a very subpar experience. A lot of aspects went poorly - it all makes it incredibly hard to justify the high price points. Additionally, if you bring children older than toddlers, you need to buy a food ticket for them too. We left hungry, tired, and grouchy. This 3rd trimester pregnant lady did not have a good time. I really hope future Taste of Mountain View events will improve, it has a lot of potential to be great, and I've heard people had wonderful experiences in the past. It just really fell short this time around. read more

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Thanks Yelp for sponsoring me tickets to this event! This amazing event gives people an opportunity to sample all the restaurants and other businesses on Castro Street. We frequent restaurants on Castro but still haven't visited more than half of them. Besides, we've never been to the non-food businesses on Castro. This time we pretty much checks all of them off our list. Initially we thought the food may not be enough to fill us, since the first several restaurants offered bite-size samples. Soon we realized how wrong we were. Big shoutouts to - 1. Crepevine, for their amazing savory chicken crepe with fries, and sweet strawberry Nutella crepe. The samples were as delicious as their regular crepes. 2. Alexander's Patisserie, for their most beautiful, delightful, and creative Earl Grey mousse. Made me feel like I was enjoying my after-dinner dessert at a Michelin three-star restaurant. 3. Asian Box, for their delicious and healthy samples of chicken rice and beyond meat pork rice (V). Not gonna lie, their samples were so tasty that we ordered takeout from them two days later. 4. Blue Line Pizza, for the great variety of tasty pizzas they offered. The chicken pizza I tried was very on-point. 5. Red Rock Cafe, for their amazing dessert samples. Absolutely loved their apricot cake and chocolate cake! Lemon bar wasn't my thing but my partner really enjoyed it. Huge shoutouts to all the volunteers! Thanks for keeping everything so well-organized. I also really appreciate the fact that most businesses made their samples very inclusive - providing options that are vegetarian or vegan. Suggestions: 1. The participant signs weren't very visible at some businesses, especially when it got crowded. 2. At some businesses where both alcohol and food were offered, the alcohol line blocked the food line, extending the wait time. read more