Out & About

Christmas season is a great time to visit downtown Fort Wayne.  The seasonal light displays are HUGE and unique.  The historic Embassy Theatre is decked out with even more bling than its usual 1928 glory.  Reindeer frequent the North Pole-inspired displays at the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory.  Gingerbread houses that are just too pretty to eat (which is good, because that’s not allowed) delight the imaginations of children and adults alike at the History Center.

If you have family coming to town for the holidays, make sure they get to see it all by just making one call – to Fort Wayne Tour, of course.   Imagine your family boarding a trolley in the afternoon, stopping at any or all of the above-mentioned sites (or others), then having a delightful meal together at a downtown restaurant before heading out for a tour of spectacular lights downtown and around Allen County, ending at your house.  Wow – memories to last a life time!

Fort Wayne Tour will honor your budget, plan an itinerary that is sure to please all ages, make all of the arrangements, including ordering tickets and reserving a restaurant venue that can easily accommodate everyone.  You get to relax, enjoy and be the host(s) who put the Merry in your family’s Christmas.

It tastes good to tour Fort Wayne! Recently Fort Wayne Tour arranged lunches for two different tour groups at two different locally-owned restaurants that feature their own special beverages:  Trubble Brewing (2725 Broadway), and Three Rivers Distilling Company (224 E. Wallace Street).  Participants of both groups were mostly Baby Boomers or older, while the proprietors of the businesses are Millennials and younger.  The experiences proved that friendly hospitality, good food and drink, and entrepreneurial pride bridge generations.

Visitors love experiencing something new and unique that they don’t have at home.  At Trubble Brewing, co-owner Keli Hankee took the time to explain how their food options are sourced as often as possible from local farmers with sustainable operations.  Keli’s passion for hard work and getting-it-right food service was obvious.

Lunch at Three Rivers Distilling Company was proceeded by a tour.  Folks got to see “the production of small batch spirits from grain to glass.”  They even got a sniff of a soon-to-be-bottled first run of a popcorn-flavored whiskey.  With lunch, they had their choice of a flight of 4 spirits, or a specialty cocktail.  Since this was a ladies group, we kept the menu light – a half panini sandwich and salad.  Three Rivers Distilling made it fresh, and the portions were plenty.

When local people put their passion on the plate or in a glass, the results prove that touring Fort Wayne never tasted so good!

None of our friends seem surprised when we tell them we have started this tour services enterprise. “What a natural fit!” is often the response.

It’s true we love this community and know it inside out. We’ve chuckled about Ron leading a fast paced tour of the alleys of Fort Wayne as only a police officer could do.  That could be exciting! (No, we won’t be offering that). My “inside out” knowledge includes sewers, but, no, we won’t go there either.  …Unless a public works convention comes to town (then we’ll “flush out” that option).

Actually, we did pitch touring Fort Wayne’s Water Filtration Plant to a group of farmers. They like that idea, especially because we said City Utilities can provide speakers to explain the work of their partnerships with agricultural agencies to improve water quality. Yay, infrastructure!

As much as we know about Fort Wayne from our past experiences, what we’re really excited about is Fort Wayne today.  From downtown to the far reaches of the trail system, this community is experiencing a renaissance of re-investment.

More than $500 million has been invested downtown Fort Wayne in the past few years, and at least $600 million more is underway or on the books, according to the Downtown Improvement District. That doesn’t count the Electric Works project, set to revive a beast of an old factory into an exciting mix of housing, education, innovative companies, entertainment, dining and more, including a farmer’s market.

So many new shops, brew pubs, wineries and entertainment options keep popping up throughout this region. We visit them in order to be ready to create the best experiences possible for our clients. It’s a tough job, but we’re glad to do it!

No matter where a tour group is going, there are stories to tell along the way.  That’s why we carefully plan routes that provide some extra oohs and ahhs in between our stops.  The Sunken Garden of Lakeside Park, designed in 1920, always delivers.   It’s a real treat when a wedding happens to be underway as the tour bus passes by, as happens regularly in warm weather.  When there’s a beautiful bride, people might even miss the glorious roses that lacing around the edges of Lakeside Park.

For swampy land which once served as the lagoons of a drainage system, this park has really come a long way!   From its humble and functional beginning more than 100 years ago, Lakeside Park is now an anchor for the surrounding neighborhoods, providing facilities for picnics, play, fishing and ice skating in the winter.  And oohs and ahhs for tour groups!