With El Paso’s downtown revitalization going full swing, it may be hard to keep track of what is happening. The following list is meant to give you an appreciation of some of the older events and celebrate the new!

Downtown Melt is an effort made by a large group of business owners to entice people to come back downtown. On the last Saturday of every month, restaurants and bars such as The Network, Soho Lounge, Bowie feathers and many more provide an open house with food and drink specials, along with live entertainment and free craft beer tastings. Follow them on Twitter to get updates on events.

Running Dead 5k Race is in its second year and will be held Nov. 2 at Ascarate Park Erace3 is an El Paso-based company that organizes these races, which include the first-ever El Paso Color Race held earlier this summer. With growing attendance, these races can only get bigger. Case in point, this year’s Running Dead will be held at the dead of night while fleeing from a horde of zombies. If you like to run and feel charitable, a part of proceeds go to local charities throughout El Paso.

EP Con is coming back this September after a growing following over the past couple of years. This year, a few members of the cast of AMC’s hit show “The Walking Dead” will attend, including Irone Singleton, Anthony Guajardo and Michael Rooker as the guests of honor as well as and many more cast members. Also coming along this year is Greg Horn, most famous for his art work on the covers of Marvel comics. Since zombies seem to be the theme of this year’s EPCON, there will be a zombie crawl on Aug. 29 beginning at 7:30 p.m. and meeting at Loft Light Studios.

New restaurants are popping up all over downtown these days with menus for everybody. The Green Ingredient is a vegetarian restaurant that opened recently downtown. They will test your boldness, and most importantly, what you thought vegetarian food really was. Hello Day Cafe Opened in the spring, but it’s not a restaurant that will grow old anytime soon. With a blast full of flavor in decent-sized meals, it’s worth the trip downtown if your looking for a cool hip place to hang out, but with a higher quality of food.

Finally, an event that never lets you down is Chalk the Block, which offers a rare moment where the downtown area turns into a living art gallery for pedestrians to enjoy. With food, entertainment and art all around, it’s fun for just about anybody. Taking a look at the event’s web page also seems to promise an even more eventful evening this year.

Although summer seems to be coming to a close, El Paso doesn’t seem to want to let go of any momentum. These are only a few of the highlights coming this fall.

For more information go to visitelpaso.com

Jaime Quesada may be reached at [email protected]