Pacific Wine and Food Classic canceled due to pandemic-related uncertainties

Bad news for Orange County’s epicures. The Pacific Wine and Food Classic is cancelled for the second year in a row, according to an announcement made by organizers Thursday.

The weekend-long food festival was initially scheduled to return to the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort for the weekend of Oct. 23 after a yearlong hiatus as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year’s cancellation comes from similar uncertainties.

The Orange County Health Care Agency reported 296 new cases of the coronavirus Thursday in addition to nine new deaths. Area hospitals have reported at least 432 cases and 132 of those cases currently in intensive care units. The Delta variant continues to be the dominant variant in Orange County and across the state, but cases have begun to plateau and trend downward.

Still, officials have raised some concern about a potential rise in cases following the Labor Day weekend, though there isn’t a clear correlation yet present in the data.

“Organizing the event begins as soon as fall the year prior,” said Pamela Waitt, president of the Orange County Restaurant Assn. and founder of the festival. “The call [to cancel] was a collection of items, but primarily included hardship on restaurants and [we were] unsure of the COVID wave direction.”

Waitt first notified participating restaurants of the cancellation on Aug. 20, describing the challenges in holding the event were “endless” and said that organizers wanted to do the right thing.

“Challenges keep presenting themselves in many forms ... because of this we are forced to cancel this year’s Pacific Wine and Food Classic,” Waitt wrote to restaurant owners. “Again, I’m so sorry. There is so much out of our control and just can’t make it work.”

The festival, held at Newport Dunes, began in 2017. All net proceeds are donated to the Golden Rule Charity, a nonprofit aimed at helping workers in the hospitality industry. Pacific Wine and Food Classic is scheduled to return next year on the first weekend of October.

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