Historic Downtown Sikeston puts new twist on valentine event set for Feb. 11

This year Historic Downtown Sikeston is changing the name of its annual chocolate walk to “Love Local Extravaganza” and adding additional excitement to the event.

According to Jason Davis, director of Historic Downtown Sikeston, in previous years the event was held on Friday and Saturday, and the merchants simply provided chocolates to sample and customers could enter a giveaway for a prize.

“It seemed to have lost interest over the past couple of years, so we have been brainstorming the last few months trying to figure out how we can improve the event and make it more where people would be interested in coming downtown for the event,” Davis said.

Davis said the “Love Local Extravaganza” will take place the weekend before Valentine’s Day, on Feb. 11, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and the downtown businesses will stay open longer exclusively for this event.

The event will be more of a festive, open-house affair, allowing people to shop later. According to Davis, this is a perfect time for people to bring their significant others downtown to do some Valentine’s Day shopping.

“The merchants are interested in offering specials and treating their customers in a way that you won’t find with online shopping,” Davis said. “That’s why we’re calling it Love Local Extravaganza, it’s for Valentine’s Day and kind of a celebration of shopping local for Valentine’s Day.”

Davis went on to say that some of the concepts for this year’s event aren’t necessarily new and are comparable to how Historic Downtown Sikeston operates its Christmas holiday open houses in November and December.

According to Davis, there will be carriage rides; the garden club will be selling roses; the stage and play will be doing valentine’s pictures, and the merchants will be doing indoor specials and valentine’s treats for the customers.

“It’s just going to be kind of that valentine’s-type atmosphere,” Davis said. “Come shopping; come get some food, go on a carriage ride, you know, kind of a date-night type of thing.”

Davis also noted that the carriage rides this year are actual carriage rides instead of stagecoach rides, which is what they have had the last couple years at the holiday event.

“This is more of that romantic carriage ride setup,” Davis said.

Davis said the carriage rides are free to the public, and Bo’s Jewelry is sponsoring the carriage rides.