Nominate your favorites for the Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards

What. A. Year.

It rode in on the back of a literal locust plague, so I’m not sure what we were expecting from 2020, but it definitely wasn’t a global pandemic that would — among many other things — wreak utter havoc in hospitality.

Mid-March saw us spending St. Patrick’s Day on the sofa, wondering if our kids would get back to school by the initial mid-April projections and yes — ordering takeout.

Lots and lots of takeout.

It’s a restaurant category we expect for you to weigh heavily as you nominate contenders for the 23rd annual Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards, so think hard on the best of your boxed meals — from the ones scarfed in the parking lot to those you artfully re-plated for social media and/or romantic dinners at the coffee table.

Even as it suffered, our city’s vibrant bar and restaurant pros got wildly creative, easily placing PIVOT at the top of business reporters’ Word of the Year list. They bottled their own cocktails, launched successful family-dinners-to-go programs, turned parking lots into twinkling, socially-distanced patios and sanitized. Over and over and over.

Despite the massive efforts, we lost many — from gorgeous newcomers with great potential, like Elize to one of my favorite-ever buffets, Sweet Tomatoes.

The downturn kicked entrepreneurship into overdrive, though, and we saw quite a few brave souls forge on with plans to open, many with impressive success. We’ll be highlighting several, along with the city’s perennial favorites.

Nominate yours, once a day, now through Feb. 4, to give them the best shot at making it to the top three spots in all 50 categories.