After a two-year-long hiatus, Eat Street Colombo, courtesy of Share Innovations, is back. The food festival took place over the weekend, on 26 and 27 March 2022 from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., at Green Path Colombo – Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha, Colombo 7. The event was endorsed by the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB).
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic concerns, there was a massive turnout at the festival with the event featuring several audience participation activities, multiple promotions, and numerous opportunities to win cash prizes.
Chief Guest Deputy Mayor of Colombo Alhaj M.T.M. Iqbal, speaking a few words at the event, shared his thoughts on the importance of events such as Eat Street, for the city of Colombo, noting: “I have participated consecutively since its beginning; it is a great service to provide something like this. A programme like this in Colombo city helps to progress the street food culture. It’s very significant for Colombo city so we hope to give our support to the best of our abilities from the Colombo Municipal Council.”
Several of the brand representatives from title sponsors also shared their thoughts. The Coca-Cola Company Brand Manager Farshan Fazil stated: “We are delighted to be onboard as a title sponsor once again. Eat Street has been a valuable property for us. They have been doing it for the last five-plus years, and it has been great visibility for us as a brand. We have special activities happening as well and we really appreciate everyone else who has partnered with us including UberEats and CBL, who will be promoting some special complimentary giveaways.”
A Dialog brand representative added: “We’ve come here to represent our digital wallet ‘Genie’ for payments. We decided to be a part of Eat Street as the digital payment sponsor, and through this app, you can make payments to all the stalls who have been given a QR code for payments. We have included a 5% discount and a Rs. 25,000 cash prize for the person doing the most transactions.”
Speaking at the event, Share Innovations Director and Eat Street Colombo Co-Founder Shazad Nawzard said: “We started in 2016 in a very small scale, and now we have more than 70 stalls of home-grown vendors, plus more than seven corporate entities involved. It’s a big improvement and has an awesome team behind it all.”
Nawzard added that they hope to expand Eat Street to other cities and we can expect the next one in Negombo. He added that they also have plans to go international with Eat Street, potentially being featured in the Maldives soon.
Share Innovations Director Anjana Udana also added that while they started this concept several years ago with the thought of Sri Lanka and its great food culture, they never would have imagined it to grow to this extent.
