Well, it’s done.

And somehow, in all the chaos, we nearly missed something: This was the 35th anniversary of Best of Orlando®. Believe it or not, we were all so busy making it happen that nobody stopped to commemorate it.

Until now, I suppose.

Welcome to what we lovingly call the Thank You Issue.

First and foremost: Thank you, Orlando.

Without you — without your nominations, your votes, your enthusiasm and, yes, occasionally your very strong opinions — there is no Best of Orlando®.

And thank you to the thousands of local businesses, restaurants, bars, artists, musicians, arts organizations, parks, personalities and assorted Orlando weirdos who give everyone something worth voting for in the first place. You are the nominees, finalists and winners. You’re what makes this little burg burst with a personality and coolness that people outside Orlando don’t always get to see — but that we get to live in and write about every day.

Now, before I get to some other thank-yous, I need to explain what these people actually pulled off.

Best of Orlando® is a beast.

It starts about eight months before you ever hold that giant issue in your hands. We debate hundreds of categories: What’s new? What’s tired? What did somebody suggest that makes us wonder how we never thought of it before? What no longer gets enough votes to justify being there? (Who remembers when there was fierce competition for Best Fro-Yo?)

Then come nominations — all 100% write-ins by the voters. (Once again, slowly, to those of you who email us or post on social media about “our” choices of nominees, finalists and winners: 100% write-ins by the voters. We write Staff Picks for our staff’s picks.)

All those write-ins can be hard to parse. We have to figure out what a vote for “Anthony’s” means. Anthony’s Pizza, Anthony’s Pizzeria and Anthony’s Italian Restaurant all have to be sorted out. Which Anthony’s? Thornton Park? Apopka? Casselberry? Does this law firm actually practice real estate law? Is that person really a personal trainer? Do these nominees even qualify for those categories?

Now multiply that process by roughly 325 categories and thousands upon thousands of nominations.

We count them, research them, clean them up and build the finals ballot. Then everybody who somehow never saw our weeks of nomination promotion suddenly emerges from the woodwork to ask why they aren’t on it.

Then comes another round of voting, marketing, advertising, photography, artwork, writing our Staff Picks, doing the event planning and, eventually, determining the winners.

And the cheaters.

Yes, cheaters. We know about those “guaranteed to win or your money back!” services. We’ve even been solicited by them ourselves. But our fraud detection is pretty good. So, seriously: Don’t cheat. You might have won without it. Now you’re disqualified, and the only winner is some scammer you paid instead of the local organization spending eight months promoting you.

But I digress.

Once voting ends, we verify winners, gather URLs, check business names, make sure a dentist didn’t somehow win Best Chiropractor, design and collect more than 100 ads, chase approvals and payments, finish the Staff Picks and somehow assemble an issue bigger than an entire month’s worth of regular Orlando Weekly issues.

Meanwhile, Orlando Weekly continues publishing every week. Our newsroom continues reporting every day. We produce City Guide, Summer Guide and Newcomers Guide. We run Bite30 and Brunch in the Park. We sell advertising. We send newsletters. We post to social media.

And this year, for the first time in seven years, we brought back the Official Best of Orlando® Awards Night.

Our old party went away during the pandemic lockdown, along with our events and marketing department. So bringing it back was no small undertaking. And unlike the old days, we simply couldn’t give away every ticket and every drink.

But Orlando showed up.

And when it finally all comes together — the giant issue lands, the winners are revealed, the party happens, people hold up their awards certificates and you see hundreds upon hundreds of Orlando people genuinely excited to celebrate one another — it is a beautiful thing.

It reminds us why we keep doing this crazy thing.

So, to the entire Orlando Weekly staff: Thank you. Your individual names appear elsewhere in these pages, but you are absolute troopers. Best of Orlando® is the most stressful thing we do every year and one of the most rewarding. You somehow pull it off while continuing to do all the other things required to keep Orlando Weekly running.

And somehow this year, this massive team of about 10 people pulled it off again, after 35 years, and threw the party back in on top!

It truly could not happen without you.

To our advertisers, sponsors, restaurants, vendors and partners: Thank you for saying yes.

I say that very intentionally. Because lots of people say no. And considering how many businesses are featured and celebrated in Best of Orlando®, when I say lots say no, I mean lots. Some even express that it’s against their ethics. That was a new one this year … 

Best of Orlando® is free to enter. It’s free to vote. Winning isn’t contingent upon buying anything from us — and I could name some very large Orlando Weekly advertisers who didn’t place at all this year, who will likely sadly attest that their money did not secure them a win.

But producing all of this is most definitely not free.

The businesses that choose to make Best of Orlando® part of their marketing plans help make it possible for us to spend months promoting and recognizing thousands of other Orlando businesses, organizations and people who don’t spend a dime with us, ever. Those awards then live in windows, on walls, and across websites and social media — sometimes for decades.

You make that possible. Thank you. The thousands of other businesses may not understand it, but they also owe you a big thanks for the contest that they so value and benefit from.

And to everyone who helped us bring the party itself back to life after seven years away: Thank you. Plaza Live, we could not have done it without you, and what an amazing venue you proved to be. Renovated and elevated enough to host the true special event we intended, nestled in the middle of the Milk District, funky and artsy enough to also be perfect for Orlando Weekly and the culture we celebrate. There are a lot of you, and you’ll find your names throughout this issue because you deserve the recognition.

Finally, back to where I started.

Thank you, Orlando.

For 35 years, you’ve told us what you love about this city. You’ve introduced us to places we didn’t know. You’ve fiercely defended your favorites. You’ve complained about categories. You’ve asked us to add categories. You’ve asked us to remove categories. You’ve campaigned. You’ve voted. You’ve celebrated. You’ve occasionally driven us absolutely insane.

And year after year, you’ve cared.

That’s why Best of Orlando® still matters after 35 years.

We’ll complain about the work again next year.

And then we’ll do it all over again.

Thank YOU.

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This article appears in Aug. 26-Sept. 1, 2026.