This Saturday, approximately 30 different restaurants will showcase their culinary abilities at the 16th annual Taste of Georgetown festival. Merchants and residents will come together to celebrate a day of food, wine and music, all in the spirit of raising money for charity.

Taste of Georgetown was founded by Grace Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Va.,16 years ago, but since partnering with the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID) five or six years ago the festival has grown larger. Georgetown BID works towards the “accessibility, attractiveness and overall appeal of Georgetown. From marketing and special events to transportation and streetscape, the BID has set a standard of excellence in preserving historic charm while meeting contemporary needs,” says BID Marketing Manager Debbie Young, who is also in charge of making sure everything runs smoothly on Saturday.

Taste of Georgetown is one of the ways that BID contributes to the enrichment of the Georgetown culture and community. The Taste of Georgetown committee has been meeting monthly since April and bi-weekly for the past month and a half to get ready for the event. The committee is made up of Georgetown BID staff members, chair of special events, restaurant and marketing managers, Grace Episcopal Church members, Georgetown Ministry Center members, business owners, employees and sponsors.

“It’s great food for a great cause,” says Young.

Proceeds from the festival benefit the Georgetown Homeless Initiative, a project of the Georgetown Ministry Center. The Ministry Center aids the homeless with programs providing training, transitional and permanent home assistance, shelter, education and counseling.

Taste of Georgetown has become an event that the whole Georgetown community looks forward to — it is a time when the barrier between customer and business owner dissolves and people get to interact with each other on a more personal level that cannot be achieved in a restaurant setting. Taste of Georgetown gives restaurants the opportunity to establish personal relationships with customers.

Some of the restaurants have been participating from the very beginning, such as Filomena Ristorante on Wisconsin Avenue. Dino Jensen, the manager, says one of his favorite parts about the festival is “seeing people come in for dinner after tasting our food at the festival.” And there are additional perks to this charity event: Many new restaurant devotees are acquired from the festival. At Filomena’s booth, attendees are given the option of sampling some of the restaurant’s best choices, including chicken ravioli, pasta with bread on the side and tiramisu, in the hopes of attracting future customers.

Bodega Spanish Tapas and Lounge, which just opened in May of last year, is participating for the first time. Though last year was too soon for them to participate, now they are ready to “show off what Bodega can do,” as manager Ryan Wolfe puts it. Bodega is a traditional Spanish restaurant, and on Saturday they will highlight that by making paella in front of the public. The executive chef will be using a large, four-foot diameter paella pan, which will serve about 350 people. Bodega plans on making two paellas throughout the course of the day. The vegetarian dish begins with vegetable stock and rice, and then a variety of vegetables and seasonings are added. The aroma will be enough to beckon anyone over to the monstrous dish. In addition to the vegetarian paella, jamón serano will also be offered. Jamón serano is a traditional dried, cured meat. It will be served along with manchego, a Spanish cheese.

Chadwicks, a bit farther away from campus on K Street, will be offering baby back ribs and clam chowder. The baby back ribs won best entrée at Taste of Georgetown two years ago, and the clam chowder has been served at the restaurant for over 35 years.

J Paul’s, another popular M Street restaurant, will be serving their surf ’n’ turf sliders, a sampling of cheeseburgers and crab cakes. J Paul’s has been a part of Taste of Georgetown since it began. As Elizabeth Scott, director of marketing for Capital Restaurant Concepts, puts it, “it is an extremely fun event that allows us the opportunity to get out of the restaurant, meet new guests, and raise money for a great cause.”

This is the Asian fusion restaurant Mie N Yu’s sixth year participating in the festival. Last year they served over 750 dishes, according to Operations Manager Victoria Graham. Mie N Yu works with a lot of farmers in Virginia and buys their ingredients locally. This year they will be serving an organic beef bulgogi, a traditional Korean dish, made with local meat and served with homemade kimchi, a side dish of spicy pickled cabbage. Their second dish is a hot and sour soup with local jumbo lump blue crab from the Chesapeake Bay. “It was a much smaller event when we started, but it has really grown,” says Graham.

Many other popular Georgetown restaurants including 1789, Georgetown Cupcake, Hook, Neyla, Rugby Café, Baked and Wired and Bangkok Joe’s will be there. Flying Dog Brewery, The Boston Beer Company, Dixie Liquor, Linganore Winecellar and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company can be found in the Wine Pavilion. Live music will be provided by Blues Alley.

The Taste of Georgetown festival begins at 11 a.m. and runs until 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10 on Wisconsin Avenue between M and South Streets, as well as in the Grace Episcopal Church parking lot, 1041 Wisconsin Ave. The event is open to the public to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere, but a ticket for one tasting costs $5. A ticket for five tastings is available for $20. Entry into the Wine Pavllion is $10. Tickets can be purchased online at tasteofgeorgetown.com or on the day of the event in the Eagle Bank parking lot.