Update (8/21/14): Due to the weather forecast for Thursday night, Bat Night at the Woodlands has been canceled.

Here’s our roundup of outdoor events in the area where you can enjoy this nice August weather and food and drinks with your friends, listen to some great music and even learn a thing or two about nature:

Wednesday, Aug 20

Penn Museum’s Summer Nights Concert Series presents Brazilian duo Minas

Penn Museum, 3260 South St, 5:00 p.m.

Celebrating 30 years since moving from Rio de Janeiro to the Philadelphia area, Minas’s innovative yet timeless sound blends folk, blues, jazz, scat, and samba, with a unique combination of Brazilian and American roots. The concert will take place in the museum’s Stoner Courtyard. $10.

Thursday, Aug 21

Dîner En Sweatpants

Clark Park “A”, 43rd and Baltimore,  5:30-8:30 p.m.

Ticketleap invites folks to a silly, FREE event this Thursday in Clark Park. Bring your picnic blankets and baskets or buy some delicious food from the food trucks after the regular Thursday Farmer’s Market! http://events.ticketleap.com/diner/

Bat Night at the Woodlands

The Woodlands Cemetery, 40th and Woodland, 6:00 p.m.

Bring some dinner and your flashlight on Thursday from 6-9 p.m. for a rare chance to spend the evening in the Cemetery after dark and see the resident bats! Also, take a walk with a bat expert and learn about special plants that will attract bats to your garden. This is a free event and sweet treats from Lil’ Pop Shop will be available for sale.

Saturday, Aug 23

Outdoor Concert feat. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah w/ Illinois, and Mo Lowda and the Humble

City Tap House, 39th and Walnut, 3:00-8:00 p.m.

City Tap House is joining forces with the booking and production team from The Blockley and Brooklyn Brewing Company to throw a couple of August, Saturday afternoon concerts on their beautiful outdoor patio space. The first concert, on Aug 23, features local indie rockers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, led by longtime frontman Alec Ounsworth. They’ll be sharing the stage with Illinois, also Philly-based rockers. Mo Lowda and the Humble, one of the city‘s finest up-and-coming groups, will open the show at 3:30 p.m. $15. 21+. Tickets are available here.

Here’s a reminder of what’s happening today around the hoods. And guess what? All of these events are free!

Night Market on Lancaster Ave @ 35th, 6 – 10 p.m. Update: West Philadelphia Orchestra will perform at the Night Market starting at 8 p.m.

Street Movies! at Malcolm X. Park (52nd and Pine), 7:45 p.m.

The Awesome Fest concludes at Clark Park (43rd and Baltimore) with the screening of Skanks. 9 p.m.

Also, the Clark Park Farmers’ Market is from 3 – 7 p.m.

Photo by Tug Haines / The Food Trust.

We are happy to report that after a few years away Night Market Philadelphia, a roving street food festival organized by The Food Trust, is coming back to West Philadelphia. The 15th installment of the festival will take place on Thursday, Aug. 14 on Lancaster Ave between 35th and 39th Streets. Last time West Philly hosted the event was in the summer of 2011.

Night Market on Lancaster Ave @ 35th will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. and admission is free. This is a great opportunity to try food from Philly’s best ethnic and regional restaurants and food trucks. Also, there will be live music and entertainment. West Philly hip-hop artist Chill Moody will perform along with a slate of other performing and visual artists.

Night Market’s mission is to spotlight a unique, diverse, vibrant and up-and-coming neighborhood in Philadelphia that some folks might not have explored. Lower Lancaster Avenue is the central hub of an area that includes lots of smaller communities, including Mantua (recently deemed a Promise Zone by President Obama) and Powelton Village.

“…We’re thrilled to be back in West Philadelphia for Night Market number 15,” The Food Trust Executive Director Yael Lehmann said in a press statement. “The Lancaster Avenue corridor is the central hub of one of our most vibrant, diverse and up-and-coming communities, making it the perfect example of why we choose the neighborhoods we do.”

The event is co-hosted by the People’s Emergency Center (PEC), one of the key neighborhood organizations in the area, which are raving about the chance to add Night Market to their calendar of activities along the Lancaster Avenue corridor and to show off their neighborhood to the festival goers. Over 15,000 people are expected to attend the event.

“…I hope that some visitors will also discover that it’s a great place to live and maybe even open up their next retail shop or restaurant,” said PEC President and CEO Farah Jimenez.

Clark Park Farmers’ Market.

There will be a nice promotion at the Clark Park Farmers’ Market happening this Saturday. Chipotle Mexican Grill will be at the market giving away free $5 vouchers to the first 1,000 people who come to the market. The vouchers can be used for anything sold by official market vendors, including Weckerly’s Ice Cream, Triple Tree Flowers, and Tacos Don Memo. Chipotle will only have 1,000 vouchers with them, so once they run out, that’s it! No purchase is necessary to receive a voucher.

Chipotle has pledged to purchase 20 million pounds of locally-sourced produce in 2014 and has partnered with The Food Trust, who runs the market, to promote Philadelphia-area farmers’ markets during National Farmers’ Market week.

The vouchers are only valid at this Saturday’s Clark Park Farmers’ Market, and cannot be honored at any other location or on any other date. If you have any questions about the promotion or how can spend your voucher, stop by the market manager table (right next to the Friends of Clark Park table).

The other day, when walking along Baltimore Ave we lamented that there was only one Dollar Stroll this year. It took place June 19 – seems like a long time ago. Today University City District (UCD) announced that due to popular demand, a second Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll this season is coming on Thursday, Sept 18! That’s great news for Dollar Stroll fans.

A record number of visitors flocked to the area for the last stroll, so UCD together with the Baltimore Avenue Business Association (BABA) are excited to bring the season’s second Dollar Stroll to Baltimore Avenue, between 43rd and 51st Streets.

As always, the event will start at 5:30 p.m. and go on until 8:30 and all are welcome to sample $1 items from local vendors during these three hours. There’s something for everyone – from $1 pours of craft beers to various bites for a buck to special memberships and ticket offers. In addition, there will be live entertainment at the 46th Street Triangle, including music from Y-Not radio, jugglers and fire artists.

The event (Facebook page) will happen rain or shine, according to the organizers. More information about participating businesses and their $1 specials is coming soon. Stay tuned.

Photo by Annamarya Scaccia / West Philly Local.

Have you been dreaming of opening a restaurant but find it too risky of a business and need some testing of your concept before launching it? Now you can try your abilities as a restaurateur or a chef right here in West Philly thanks to a new program by The Enterprise Center (TEC-CDC). A pop-up restaurant incubator, titled Common Table, is coming soon to West Philly’s Dorrance H. Hamilton Center for Culinary Enterprises (CCE) (pictured) where aspiring food entrepreneurs and chefs will get professional support while testing their chops.

The new restaurant incubator is expected to launch in November 2014 and TEC-CDC is currently accepting applications for the Common Table Fellowship Program. Applications are due Friday, Aug. 15. Other events during the fellow selection process include the TEC-CDC business plan workshop on August 12 and business plan competition and chef tasting event in mid-September or early October. The Common Table 2014 Fellows will be announced in October (visit this page for more details about the program and the application process).

The Common Table program organizers would like to select a “diverse cohort of Fellows based on criteria including strength of their business plans, culinary ability, and commitment to the full program.”

Common Table Fellows will use a new, fully staffed, 1,400-square-foot, 40-plus seat restaurant space at the CCE, located at 310 S. 48th Street. Common Table will also be available for nightly or weekly rentals once its construction is complete.

Committed to helping aspiring local food entrepreneurs, CCE is also hosting Foodie Forums where you can learn about the business services available at the center and how you can become a CCE member to access their state-of-the-art commercial kitchen space. The forums will be held on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 8 – 9 a.m. and Wednesday, Aug. 13, 1 – 2 p.m. Click on the dates below to register.

August 5
August 13