Dubois County launches month-long dining passport with 26 restaurants

Dubois County is turning dinner into a countywide scavenger hunt, with a 26-restaurant passport designed to reward repeat visits and keep more meal dollars inside locally owned businesses. Visit Dubois County launched the Yumm…MAY Tasty Tour Passport on April 27, and the promotion runs from May 1 through May 31.

The mechanics are simple. Diners can pick up a printed passport at participating locations or at the Dubois County Visitors Center, then earn a stamp with each in-person purchase. Every five stamps counts as an entry into prize drawings, and restaurants in the broader program were asked to contribute a minimum of $30 in gift cards for those prizes. The Visitors Center is handling the design, printing and distribution of the passport cards.

The countywide reach is part of the appeal. The passport stretches across Jasper, Huntingburg, Ferdinand and the communities in between, and Visit Dubois County has described the local dining scene as a mix of cozy cafés, sweet shops, pubs, destination restaurants and other neighborhood favorites. That variety gives the campaign a broader economic purpose than a typical meal deal. Instead of pushing traffic to one business, the passport gives 26 independent restaurants a shared promotion and a reason for customers to try another stop before the month is over.

The potential ripple effect is easy to measure. If just 100 households completed one five-stamp passport, the campaign would generate 500 in-person purchases across locally owned restaurants. That kind of traffic may not change the county’s dining market overnight, but for small operators that depend on steady local patronage, even a modest lift in repeat visits can matter.

The campaign also fits Visit Dubois County’s broader pitch that the county’s restaurant scene is part of its tourism identity. By tying stamps and prizes to actual purchases, the passport gives residents and visitors a built-in incentive to eat local, spend local and move from one restaurant to the next. For May, that makes an ordinary lunch or dinner part of a larger countywide effort to keep spending circulating at home.