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The scene was bustling, the smells enticing and the cuisine was palate-expanding.

Sunday's 15th annual Taste of Wheaton festival drew close to 20,000 people to savor samples from some of Wheaton's best restaurants, all conveniently grouped together on one block.

More than 15 restaurants from a smorgasbord of ethnic backgrounds served up their go-to dishes in $1 and $5 tastes for hungry crowds as diverse as the food they were eating.

Longtime Wheaton resident David Kessler, waiting in line for a fish pie from Global Café African Grill, said the diversity showcased at Sunday's festival is one of the reasons he moved his family here.

"You see the world is larger than your neighborhood, and Wheaton brings the world to your neighborhood," he said.

For the first time, the festival was held in downtown parking lot 13, which sits across Reedie Drive from the Mid-County Regional Services Center. Organizers said the parking lot provided more room for rides and booths run by local businesses, and it meshed well with the flea market held in the Safeway parking lot a block away.

But there was another benefit to the central location. For county planners, the parking lot was a prime location to demonstrate Wheaton's redevelopment potential. Planners are in the midst of searching for a developer to turn the parking lot into a kind of town square with public amenities, and they had their own booth Sunday to explain the process and benefits to festival-goers.

Peter McGinnity, the business manager of the Wheaton Redevelopment Program, said there seemed to be a lot of interest in the redevelopment process from people who don't normally come to the public meetings.

"I think I've handed out all my business cards," he said.

Local businesses and restaurants that border the festival and parking lot were also benefiting from the influx of shoppers.

While his wife took charge of their booth stocked with quarter-sized subs and cannolis at the festival, Marchone's Italian Deli owner Filippo Leo rushed around his store across the parking lot on Triangle Lane. One would think the surplus of cheap and tasty chow just outside his store would render the inside of Marchone's a ghost town, but just the opposite was true. The festival seemed to have whetted the appetite of regular customers, new customers and long-lost customers who crossed his threshold for bigger portions of the store's Italian cookies and subs, Leo said.

"We are super busy today," he said. "We see old customers who forget that we are here."