Our Day at Taste of St. Augustine: A Local Tradition Worth Visiting

I attended the 2026 Taste of St. Augustine at the Amphitheater, and I would definitely recommend giving it a try next time it comes around!

Taste of St. Augustine is an annual event that benefits EPIC Behavioral Healthcare. You get to sample food from 20-plus restaurants from the St. Augustine area, while enjoying live music. Read on for all the details!

Admission: $10.00 per person to enter—taste tickets are $1.00 each. The vendors charge between one and eight tickets per taste. Entry is free to those who participate in Race to the Taste. VIP is $50 (more on that later)

When: Held annually in April, usually on a Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Where: St. Augustine Amphitheatre, 1340C A1A S., St. Augustine, Florida 32084

Website: https://www.visitstaugustine.com/event/taste-st-augustine

All About Taste of St. Augustine

Cost of Entry:

General entry is $10, which is not bad! Kids 12 and under are free, and it is a family-friendly event.

VIP is $50. We got a 2 VIP package and used a $25 off early bird code, making two VIP tickets $75.

VIP comes with special reserved parking up front, five taste tickets each, a free beer, and a special area to sit with separate air-conditioned bathrooms.

Parking:

Parking is free at the Amphitheater, and there seemed to be plenty of spots when we arrived around 1 p.m. We did have reserved parking though, which was easy to find and right up front.

If the parking lot is full, there is a free shuttle runs from R.B. Hunt Elementary to the Amphitheatre. Not sure if they do that every year, but it was offered this year.

Taste Tickets:

You can purchase any number of taste tickets you want, and you will use them for both food and drinks. Most of the food I sampled was between three and six tickets, and drinks were seven tickets.

Food:

The food was great! I really loved everything I tried. And I love the way most places put an effort into presentation as well.

Like this delicious Ceviche with Fried Plantains from Hotel Amalga and Hugo Restaurant, decorated with pink and blue orchids.

More food favorites are below! From left to right:

Alligator Bites with Blueberry Remoulade on a Chilled Corn and Cucumber Salad, from Santiago’s Florida Kitchen & Craft bar. I actually liked these so much, I went back for seconds.

Braised Borrow Short Rib with Street Corn Risotto and Cilantro Lime Crema from Castillo Craft Bar & Kitchen. Every bit of this was excellent.

Cumin-Spiced Chicken topped with Coconut-Creamed Spinach (Kuku wa Mchicha) from African Love Kitchen Food Truck. This was served with rice and extra sauce on the side. The sauce was SO good! This one also got a second round.

Not pictured, but worth a mention, I also went for two samples of the Tres Leches (vanilla and brandy sponge cake) from La Amapola Cafe.

Drinks:

Soda and water were available for two tickets, and wine and beer were seven tickets.

The wine available was Copa di Vino, those ones that are the little single-serve cups. They had a pinot grigio and cabernet.

The beer available was Michelob Ultra, Stella, and Bold City IPA.

Activities:

They had live music and some people were dancing near the end of the day. And the website says there was a kid zone, but I’m not sure where that was! I thought we walked around the entire thing, but we somehow missed the kid zone.

Is VIP Worth It?

There’s honestly no big reason to do the VIP tickets, but it does come with some perks we enjoyed. Plus, the money all goes to a good cause. But I will say that they could at least give ten taste tickets, as five wasn’t even enough to get most of the food I wanted to try, as most were in the six-ticket range.

The reserved parking spot is nice, however we did pass a lot of empty spots on our way to our special parking spot.

The VIP area is kind of tucked away in the back and off to the side, so you are really out of the way and can’t hear the music over there. However, it was a very nice spot to escape and cool off and use the restroom.

And you get a guaranteed place to sit! There was definitely a shortage of tables and seats, which is kind of funny for a place serving a bunch of food. They could use more high-top tables at least.

The free beer was Michelob Ultra, which I don’t drink, so that was a bit of a bust. I ended up using my tickets to get an IPA.

Show Up Ready to Eat!

We wandered around from 1 p.m. until they closed at 4 p.m. and sampled food the entire time! I was stuffed by the time we left.

On our way out, we made sure to vote for our favorite vendor for the “People’s Choice” award. We picked African Love Kitchen! Their unique Tanzanian food really stood out.

The other winners are voted on by a panel of judges made up of food service professionals and dignitaries. The awards are: Best Family, Best Ethnic, Best Upscale, Best Dessert, and Best Beverage.