Starting tonight at Vancouver Landing: ?Dos dias de la hora feliz!
Put another way: Two days of happy hour!
Organizers of this weekend’s ¡Viva Vancouver! Festival want to build a bridge between cultures here in Southwest Washington. What better way, they figure, than through food and drink, music and dance?
“For two days, you don’t have to think about work or the bills or customers or your deadlines,” said organizer Domingo Estrada. Whether your primary language is English or Spanish, he said, “Just come and relax and have a good time. That’s the vibe we want.”
Estrada, who works for Columbia Beverage Distributing, is excited about a new ¡Viva Vancouver! IPA that’s been brewed up by Urban Hopworks especially for this event; other Mexican-style but totally local craft beers will be available too — such as a Full Sail Mexican lager whose label proudly announces that it’s “hecho (made) en Hood River.”
Beverage makers are finally waking up to the untapped purchasing power of Latinos, Estrada said. But “tropical sounds” have been part of the Northwest music scene for years, he added, and two of the area’s premiere salsa bands will appear at ¡Viva Vancouver! on Aug. 19.