1st Mardi Gras Block Party Coming To St. Pete's Grand Central District – Patch

ST. PETE, FL — The Grand Central District hosts its first annual Mardi Gras Block Party Feb. 18, noon to 5 p.m.

The event builds on the success of St. Pete Pride in June and Halloween on Central in October, which shuts down Central Avenue for celebrations with entertainment, vendors, food and drinks.
“Those were both a big success the last couple of years,” Chris Arnold, the district’s executive director, told Patch. “We’ve been talking in the past couple of years that we need a spring event so that we have three evenly spaced out events.”
The goal of these events is to spur “economic vitality and promote the district and the businesses in it,” he added.
This first Mardi Gras celebration will focus on businesses in the west end of the district on Central Avenue between 29th and 30th streets.
“The reason why we’re doing it down there is that other events start at the other end (of the district) like Halloween and Pride,” Arnold said. “This is the part that doesn’t get included all the time. We’d love for it eventually to be a full district party. This year is the test year.”
Participating businesses include The Studio Public House, Hawthorne Bottle Shoppe, The Craftsman House Gallery and Mutts & Martinis all offering a range of activities from live music, themed food menus and drink specials to food trucks and vendors.
“They’re all having Mardi Gras-themed events that day,” he said. “It’s kind of like a modified Mardi Gras pub crawl. We’re getting people to come down there and see what kinds of events and businesses we have.
Though they debated it, Central Avenue won’t be closed to traffic during this first event, though he hopes to shut the street down next year as the event grows.
“We’ll build on it next year, expanding to more blocks,” Arnold said. “Halloween (on Central) didn’t start as big as it is; now, it’s 22 blocks. But it should be pretty cool this year. I’m hoping there’s a lot of response so we can ramp it up a couple of notches next year.”

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