A community event celebrating one of Bowling Green’s most famous residents, Duncan Hines, is set to return next summer, with preparations already underway.

The Duncan Hines Days weeklong celebration, which will include a Restaurant Week, is scheduled June 5-11.

To create community awareness for the event and offer details, a free Duncan Hines Days Launch Party, hosted by SoKY Marketplace and the new Southern Kentucky Hospitality Association, will be from 7 to 10 p.m. Oct. 15 at Gasper Brewery in downtown Bowling Green.

Guests can enjoy food truck delicacies from Big Al’s Hot Damn Chicken, Totally Baked BG and Pippin Pop Popcorn with live music from Sam Locke and Jane Pearl, opening for DT on the Rocks.

City of Bowling Green Downtown Development Coordinator Telia Butler said the launch party is two-fold because it will also serve as an afterparty for the Downtown BGKY Harvest Festival, held on the same date.

“It’s an opportunity to take that crowd and announce all of the events on the books for Duncan Hines Days next summer,” she said.

Butler said there was a need for a late spring and early summer community-driven event in Bowling Green.

“We have the Harvest Festival in the fall and Downtown Lights up in the winter,” she said. “It would be nice to have the same kind of event in the spring or summer.”

Butler said she approached several people about the idea in June and received positive feedback, so the planning began.

She said she ran across some information about a Duncan Hines Days celebration in the 1980s, which was also the 50th anniversary of the publishing of Hines’ first book.

“They had given him a key to the city,” she said. “It was posthumous and ceremonial in nature. So I thought, ‘What if we took the Duncan Hines Days name and turned it into a Bowling Green restaurant week in the late spring?’ ”

Hines, an entrepreneur born and raised in Bowling Green known for the cake mixes bearing his name, was also what Butler called “one of the first influencers,” keeping a journal of roadside places he dined and overnighted in that were clean and safe during his travels.

This journal resulted in three books, “Adventures in Good Eating,” “Lodging for a Night,” and “Duncan Hines’ Vacation Guide,” all published in the 1930s-1950s.

A Duncan Hines Festival, in various forms and at various locations, has been held in Bowling Green for decades until recently.

Butler said she hopes the renewed event will give guests an opportunity to learn about all of the best that our area has to offer in food, travel and entertainment, much like Hines’ books offered helpful insights to travelers.

“Bowling Green is most known for Corvettes, WKU and Mammoth Cave and is niche to a certain group of people,” Butler said. “We wanted to take this information (about Duncan Hines) and turn it into something inclusive with food, drinks and entertainment that anyone can enjoy. It’s not just a celebration of the man himself, but of his legacy with food.”

Any restaurant or food truck interested in participating in Restaurant Week can attend a free conversation from 1 to 3 p.m. Oct. 17 at the Historic RailPark & Train Museum.

There has already been interest from vendors who would like to set up at the event, with about half-a-dozen vendors so far, Butler said.

Postcard mailer invitations have been sent to all eateries registered with the Barren River District Health Department.

Butler said that after the conversation on Oct. 17, “we will have a better idea of how it’s going to shape up.”

“We would like this to be that kind of event that people associate with Bowling Green,” she said. “We want it to be an event that people will come home for.”