Self-guided tours, eclectic experiences and new dishes: Calgary startup reinvents food tours

When Calgary-based entrepreneur Joanna Pariseau decided to experiment with a food-based startup in 2023, she drew from her own experiences as an international student in Italy struggling to make sense of the food scene.

"I'm an urban studies major and I was in Italy and I just found that I didn't want to, you know, spend 3½ hours, visit kitchens, be in a group, have a guide. But I still wanted to hop around and try to taste a bunch of different food," she said in an interview on The Homestretch.

"I tried to go at it on my own and ended up getting hopelessly lost and tried to ask all the Italians where I should be going. And I decided that really there needed to be a better self-guided process for this."

Pariseau took a leap of faith and announced her startup, Taste the City, while pursuing her undergraduate degree at the University of Calgary.

Her partner in crime was her childhood best friend, Melissa Boerger, who knew how passionate Pariseau was about hosting food-tasting sessions.

"She would take friends out on these little mini-tasting tours just for fun.… She took me on one and I loved it so much," Boerger said.

"So when she approached me, like, 'I have this idea for the city. Do you wanna join? Is it something that you would want to be a part of?' And it was like 100 per cent yes for me."

Pariseau's partner in crime was her childhood best friend, Melissa Boerger, who knew how passionate Pariseau was about hosting food-tasting sessions. (Submitted by Joanna Pariseau )

Taste the City went through its beta-testing phase in October 2023 and the response was overwhelmingly positive, much to the delight of the entrepreneurs.

"It's always scary when you first put something out there," Boerger said. "So many people went on the tasting, and the feedback we got was just unreal. People loved it and they loved being able to taste, you know, multiple spots in one night."

Simple and straightforward

Taking a tour is straightforward. You book a pre-curated tasting experience through the startup's website, show up at the first location and sample different flavours, then receive a text message that reveals more information about your next stop.

Since its launch, the startup has made its way to three locations in the city — 17th Avenue S.W., Inglewood and Stephen Avenue.

The plan is to launch the product in six cities across the country by spring. The team has already started onboarding eateries in Toronto and Victoria.

That's not all. Taste the City bagged the top prize ($15,000) at the Queen's Entrepreneurs' Competition (QEC) earlier this month in Toronto, beating scores of other startups from fields ranging from health to education.

The annual competition features business pitches by undergraduate students from around the world as they attempt to win over a formidable panel of judges, including but not limited to venture capitalists and industry professionals.

Taste the City bagged the top prize ($15,000) at the Queen’s Entrepreneurs’ Competition (QEC) earlier this month in Toronto, beating scores of other startups from different fields, ranging from health to education. (Submitted by Joanna Pariseau)

"A big thing that was really important for the judges was that they loved the founders. They found that … they were really, really passionate, really enthusiastic, really energetic about their idea," said Ben Cooke, co-chair of the QEC.

Cooke added that the scalability of the initiative combined with the fact it had already been launched in Calgary worked in Pariseau and Boerger's favour.

"Just in the short time they were in Toronto, they already onboarded four restaurants one of the nights. So that just goes to show like their entrepreneurial spirit and their passion for the project."

Tackling challenges

That said, Pariseau and Boerger both acknowledged their journey was far from easy.

"I didn't do this alone. I didn't win that competition alone. I had great mentorship doing that," Pariseau said.

According to the entrepreneur, her pitch was a "hot mess" at first and she had to go back and forth with her mentors before she felt ready.

"I really had a really strong group of female mentors that I was connected [with] through the University of Calgary and that helped me," Pariseau said.

Joanna Pariseau said her business pitch was a 'hot mess' at first and she had to go back and forth with her mentors until she felt ready. (Submitted by Joanna Pariseau )

That's not all — she was also juggling motherhood and her studies while working on the startup.

Boerger, who is also a mom, agreed it was tricky to balance motherhood and work.

"When we started talking to restaurants, we started to quickly realize how it is a male-dominated field," Boerger said.

Listen | Joanna Pariseau talks about Taste the City:

The two friends remained undeterred, according to Boerger, who said they were determined "to bring something to the restaurants."

"We're going to bring something to the industry, you know, that only a woman can give … [there] needs to be a place for everyone kind of at that table."