There are plenty of family activities at CityFest.

Fun you can taste
Comerica CityFest fills the streets with food, music and more

Jan Toth / Special to The Detroit News

Put on your dancing shoes, and loosen your belt: A summertime fave is back again, and we can all eat like kings and have way too much fun for days on end. In short, Comerica's CityFest 2007 takes place Wednesday through Sunday in Detroit.

Now in its 19th year, the New Center gala has changed its name from Comerica TasteFest to Comerica CityFest, but the essence remains the same -- great food, amazing music and a rollicking street fair all along West Grand Boulevard between Woodward Avenue and the Lodge Freeway.

"It's certainly all about the food," says Martha Raye, a five-time attendee from Grosse Pointe. "The best chefs in the area knock themselves out, there's every kind of food you can imagine, and it's great.
"You just stroll from booth to booth, trying a taste at each. I gain 5 pounds from this party every year."
For Detroit artist Gwen Joy, it's all about the art.

"This festival is about our lifestyle here in Detroit," she says. "How we live, how we play, how we eat. I love the New Center area, and I love how this festival puts local Detroit art together with a really great party."

The opening for CityFest 2007 is an art exhibit tonight inside the lobby of the historic Fisher Building, and Joy -- whose works include a towering, six-by-eight-foot image of Ted Nugent being chased by a bear -- is a featured artist, along with pop fave Niagra, Julia Cohl, Carl Lundgren, Shaylene Saniola and other local artists.

For others, it's all about the music, and CityFest offers four nonstop stages of it.

The MotorCity Casino Main Stage will feature underground rock staple Spoon, reggae legends The Wailers, Nigerian musician Femi Kuti, blues and soul artist Bobby "Blue" Bland, and chart-topping parodist "Weird Al" Yankovich.

New this year among the 40-plus restaurants providing taste treats are Happy's Pizza of Detroit, Longhorn Steakhouse of Auburn Hills, and the Java Exchange of Detroit.

Returning favorites include the popular Beans & Cornbread, The Melting Pot of Troy, Taqueria Mi Pueblo, Cold Stone Creamery and Mini Bee Donuts from Howell.

Kids and the young at heart can visit the animals at Farmer John's Barnyard, and create make-and-take art objects at Art and Scraps.

The Detroit Derby Girls show off their roller derby ways, and there will be skateboarding exhibitions from Modern Skate & Surf's Extreme Team. Don't miss the Cruising Climber, where kids get to test their rock climbing skills or the Basement Experts Truck Tour from the Detroit Pistons and Shock.

For those for whom it's all about the shopping, the 2nd Avenue Street Market offers wares from Metro Detroit merchants such as Berkley's Burning Bead Studio, Noir Leather of Royal Oak, Flo Boutique and Spirit in the Park Gallery of Detroit. Or you could get a henna tattoo from Vaidehi Design.

For the expected crowd of about 500,000, it's five days of food, fun and great art, Motown-style, with lots of music to keep you moving.

Jan Toth is a Metro Detroit freelance writer.