Cape Coral hosted Southwest Florida’s first Dishcrawl, which is a new culinary adventure aimed at introducing residents to places and food right in their backyard.

Dishcrawl is kind of like a bar crawl except, instead of walking to different pubs throughout the night for another drink, Dishcrawlers walk to different restaurants trying different foods at every stop.

Dishcrawls became famous in big cities like San Francisco and have started popping up in metropolitan areas all over the country.

One of the latest sites is Southwest Florida.

The first Dishcrawl in the area took place in Cape Coral recently. Dishcrawlers experienced four different stops all within walking distance of each other.

Southwest Florida Dishcrawl Ambassador Caryn Bartholomew, who organized the event, said she designs the Dishcrawls to expose people from the area to restaurants they probably have never been to.

“I think there are some really, really, really good restaurants here that I don’t think a lot of people know about,” she said. “And hopefully what I can do is keep finding that in Southwest Florida and kind of give people an idea of what’s out there.”

Bartholomew said she hopes Dishcrawls will also be a way for people in different cities throughout Southwest Florida to get to know other cities.

Mona Paine was one of the roughly two dozen people who attended  the first Dishcrawl. She’s from Naples and she said doesn’t really get out to places like Cape Coral often.

“So, it’s kind of neat because we know nothing about this area,” she said. “And it looks really eclectic. You know, little bars and little places around here. So, we are looking forward to see what Cape Coral has.”

Bartholomew said she wants to put together a Dishcrawl two or three times a month if possible. She said she’ll plan them for Tuesdays or Wednesdays, which are typically slow days for restaurants.

One of Dishcrawl’s missions is to help local independent restaurants build a clientele.