Overview Bites and Blues is a spring afternoon on the Morehead City waterfront where a ticket buys one small bite at every host restaurant and shop along the route, live music plays from host establishments along the way, and the crowd votes for a Bite of the Nite winner at the end. In 2026, its 13th year, 30 restaurants and businesses hosted, from Amos Mosquitos and Jack's on the Waterfront to Peerless Oysters and Bogue Sound Distillery. The North Carolina Seafood Festival runs it in the spring, months ahead of the festival itself, which began on the same waterfront in 1987 and is held on the first full weekend of October. On site The 2026 day opened at 1 p.m. on Jack's 3rd Floor with the Poster Reveal Party, where the artist unveiled that year's commemorative Seafood Festival poster and 40 years of past posters were on sale. Sampling ran from 2 to 5:30 p.m. down the waterfront, with Patrick Bliss, Nathan Sheppard and Kelsey Hurley playing and Tattoo Slover and Jeremy Oren holding a piano bar. Ballots closed at 5:30, and the winner was named at the 6 p.m. after-party at Promise Land Market. The ticket itself is a printed map of the stops, about 650 of them in 2025. Audience Every ticket holder walks the whole route, so each host business meets the full crowd face to face, and every guest casts a ballot for the best bite. The festival calls it a Carteret County favorite with locals and visitors alike, and pitches the day as a way to support downtown Morehead City businesses. Track record The festival describes Bites and Blues as a sell-out event. After a 2020 cancellation it came back in April 2021 for its eighth year with 20 restaurants and 650 tickets sold, and by 2026 the route had grown to 30 hosts. Amos Mosquitos took Bite of the Nite in 2025. Brand presence Four sponsorships attach to the parts of the day. The ticket sponsor's logo goes on the printed map-tickets and the online tickets, and the Bite of the Nite sponsor helps hand out the award; each of those is sold to one company, and both ride on the event's emails to the Seafood Festival's list of more than 8,000 contacts. The Poster Reveal sponsor helps the artist unveil the poster, and an after-party sponsor helps present the award at the after-party. All four get a website logo and link, a social post and recognition at the reveal or the after-party.