Participants can pick up a DORA Dash card from any of the six participating restaurants: Agave & Rye, the Brunch Pub, City BBQ, Manna Uptown, Meridien and Nelly’s. Then they visit each restaurant (no purchase required), and receive a stamp from restaurant staff.
Completed cards are then submitted to any participating restaurant by July 31 (with name, address, email and phone number). A drawing will take place Aug. 5, with six winners receiving gift card prize packs to use during future visits to the participating restaurants.
The restaurants range from very new — Meridien, Manna and Agave & Rye opened in 2023, while the Brunch Pub launched this year — to older staples, as Nelly’s is approaching a decade in Centerville, and City BBQ has been there 20 years.
The 16.4-acre Uptown DORA launched in early June in the commercial area surrounding the Franklin Street and Main Street intersection, stretching as far as Virginia Avenue in the west, Maple Avenue in the east, Cranston Court to the south and just south of East Ridgeway Drive to the north.
The outdoor drinking area concept first launched in Ohio in 2015 as an economic development tool and a way to garner exposure for communities and businesses. The list of communities that have enacted them so far includes, but is not limited to, Cincinnati, Dayton, Fairborn, Hamilton, Lebanon, Mason, Miamisburg, Miami Twp., Middletown, Springboro and Springfield.
They allow restaurants or businesses with liquor licenses to sell alcoholic beverages in designated plastic cups. Beverages served may be taken off premise and consumed within designated areas that are indicated by signage.
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