a taste of restaurant weeksamerican siberia. as a rebuke of sorts, the st. paul (mn) chamber of...

20 Chamber Executive July/August 2005

By Steve Haweeli

While many chamber events are primarily net-working events or are restricted to only mem-bers, more and more chambers are turning to food-based events to either make money

or promote the area or both. By opening up participation in these events to non-chamber members, a chamber positions itself as being truly community-oriented and may attract new members in the long run.

On the revenue side, such large events themselves can be tricky in terms of turning a profit. It may take some ingenu-ity from the chamber to turn the event into a profit-making endeavor. But before these types of events get crossed off your possibilities list, consider the type of event your community could produce.

Introducing ‘Restaurant Week’ Restaurant-driven events can be organized and put on in a

variety of ways. Some are straight “restaurant weeks,” which essentially showcase a community’s dining options through a fixed or discounted rate. Restaurants pay the organizer (cham-ber or otherwise) a flat fee to promote and administer the event. In turn, the restaurants go about their business inside their actual locations, with one caveat: there is a fixed price and menu for customers, who can then sample a few entrees at any participating restaurant.

In this model, the aim is to promote the individual restau-rants, their fare, and their location while also promoting the community itself as a dining destination. This model lends itself more often to either medium or large-sized cities or to

neighborhoods within a larger city, as a sort of branding effort for that enclave. Most restaurant weeks are styled after suc-cessful models in New York, Boston, and London. In Albany, NY, the Downtown Albany campaign used a restaurant week to draw attention—and, thus, visitors and dollars—to the city’s emerging downtown.

From a numbers perspective, Manhattan’s Restaurant Week is a significant success: The number of diners during each event jumps by at least 20 percent, according to NYC & Com-pany, the city’s tourism agency.

On the East End of Long Island at the Hamptons Restaurant Week, participating restaurants offer a three-course $19.95 price fixed for one week from Sunday to Sunday, with restau-rants only having to offer this “prix fixe” from 6 to 7 on Sat-urday night. This creates high demand for reservations and a presumable overflow of those looking to dine outside the core hours. More than 100 businesses participate in the Hamptons’ event, including 50 restaurants, 19 wineries, 27 lodging facili-ties, and a host of retail stores that offer discounts.

Getting a “Taste of”A more common food-based event is the “Taste of” model.

Here the specifics and creative possibilities are much more expansive. In this instance, the event is populated by restau-rants, sponsors, and other vendors who buy booths from the organizer (again, chamber or otherwise) and assemble in a concentrated area to maximize foot traffic in an effort to gain exposure. Supplementing this basic structure is usually local, regional, or even national entertainment, usually in the form of live music, family or kid-friendly activities, and other cultural

Food-based events offer a potential marriage of revenue for the chamber and exposure for its members and community.

A Taste of Restaurant Weeks

Chamber Executive July/August 2005 21

events which give the “Taste of” format its carnival-like feel (see sidebar for details).

Even smaller communities like El Cerrito, Cal., can put on these types of events and reap benefits. Taste of El Cerrito raises money for the El Cerrito (CA) Chamber of Commerce, as well as for a scholarship fund to help El Cerrito High School students attend business school. A silent auction and prize drawings also raise additional dollars.

A close cousin of restaurant weeks and “taste of” events, seasonal festivals are popular draws and successful ones can do very well drawing in attendees from outside the community. St. Patrick’s Day festivals like the ones in Milwaukee, Wisc., and Savannah, Ga., are typically surpassed, if at all, only by Oktoberfest-style celebrations. In these cases, an ethnic tradi-tion serves as the platform for the event, but certainly draws people from outside those singular backgrounds. American Oktoberfests are patterned after the storied annual celebration in Munich, Germany.

Launching and promotingA successful “taste of” or restaurant week is at least a six-

month project in the making. The first order of business is to decide the parameters of the promotion. What are the dates? What will it cost? Who is eligible to participate? How will it be funded? The event needs to be pushed from an advertising standpoint, and that is where sponsorship money is best spent. A national liquor or food company may be happy to write a check with a few zeros on it in order to gain brand recogni-tion and show commitment to a community via financial underwriting. Those monies should be earmarked for a thor-

ough print ad campaign (or radio or TV spots). Make sure the sponsor’s logo appears in every ad and that their name appears in every press release.

Sponsorship money may also be used to hire a local PR firm on a per-project basis to help gain editorial visibility. If you hire a restaurant PR firm, well, you may have hit the proverbial jackpot in terms of taking the workload off your shoulders. A restaurant-familiar PR firm will be only too happy to cooperate. The chamber itself may also choose to budget internal public relations dollars in order to ensure the success of their event.

The advertising budget will be determined largely by the amount of sponsorship monies the chamber secures. Also, the chamber might want to budget additional administrative help to assist in coordinating what can be a large undertak-ing. Non-restaurant chamber members can also participate by buying a booth if that is an option, offering their services pro bono to the chamber itself, or offering discounts on goods and services during the event. For instance, retailers can offer ten percent off during the event; lodging facilities may offer dis-counts on rooms to attract out of town visitors. Liquor stores, beer distributors, breweries, and wineries are logical partners to offer discounts as well.

Media partnerships are also important to a successful pro-motion; you can often barter these partnerships for valuable advertising or editorial space to ensure visibility for the event. Local radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and news web-sites are good targets; most of them will be receptive to your proposal. You can get increased press off multiple angles for an event of this magnitude.

A Taste of Restaurant Weeks


Common issuesMany restaurant weeks and “taste of” events actually have

an ulterior motive behind them—they are held during slow times when business normally trails off, thereby seeking to boost activity during the down times. New York offers two restaurant weeks—one in the dead of January; the other at the end of June. Boston and Atlanta offer theirs during various weeks of August while shoreline tourist destinations like the Hamptons are in their high season when urban areas tend to be vacated.

A potential snafu, especially in smaller or medium-sized communities is road closings. If part of your angle for your event is that is will benefit businesses in and around the area of the event. Make sure access is maximized. A recurring beef from business owners across the country is that during such a special event, they see no uptick in business. Why? Because potential customers couldn’t get to their store, either though road closings, traffic, or other difficulties which make shop-ping, eating and buying harder than it should be. A small business owner who opens early and prepares extra staff only to see no increase in business will not be easily swayed on the positives of the event. Work with all interested parties to establish and communicate the best possible coordination of the event.

In a recent article in The New York Times, several notable Manhattan restauranteurs cited the pros and cons of partici-pating in a big restaurant week-styled event, but noted that in

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Chamber Executive July/August 2005 23

Big events not only present a community with the oppor-tunity to draw tons of visitors from outside the area, they also give organizers the chance to get creative. For example, here are five successful events—involving cham-bers—that tie into nature.

St. Paul Winter Carnival Back in 1885, the New York Times wrote that St. Paul was hardly fit for human habitation, dubbing the city an American Siberia. As a rebuke of sorts, the St. Paul (MN) Chamber of Commerce invented the first St. Paul Winter Carnival the next year to dispel rumors about the city’s livability. Like a large state fair held in winter, this annual event features its now-famous ice palace, a 240-foot-long structure made each year entirely of ice (27,000 blocks, 500 pounds each) from Lake Phalen in east St. Paul, with the tallest turret nearly eight stories high. The 1937 castle had an elevator in it, and at least one includ-ed a maze. The 1992 castle—coinciding with the Super Bowl played in Minneapolis—drew more than 2.5 million visitors. The event is the largest and oldest winter festival in America. It features car racing on ice, fireworks, torch-light parades, a “frozen” 5K race, ski and hockey competi-tions, and more.

Cincinnati CicadaFestLast year, Cincinnati, like some other cities, was faced with the prospect of playing host to millions of cicadas—benign winged insects that show up every 17 years for mating. The Cincinnati (OH) USA Regional Chamber of Com-merce and YPCincy.com, its young professionals network, put together a month-long event, CicadaFest, and com-missioned a CD with original songs about the cicadas by various local rock groups. The CD, called ‘Seventeen Year Itch: Mating Songs of Cincinnati USA,’ sold more than 2,000 copies in the first few days of Ohio’s infestation. The event, anchored by weekly “Cicada Escape Zones” (places where young professionals could congregate for happy hours) drew national media coverage, including CBS News, National Geographic, and PRWeek.

Chandler Ostrich FestivalIn 1988, when chamber leaders were looking for a com-munity event that would help Chandler, Ariz., stand out, someone recalled the long-gone ostrich farms kept by the town’s founder, Dr. A.J. Chandler. A very small tradition was born, with an ostrich race that year. Last year, how-

ever, more than 100,000 people attended OstrichFest, bringing in almost $70,000 to help fund the chamber. Highlights include the actual race/parade with more than 100 ostriches strutting along Arizona Avenue, some 150 arts and crafts vendors, carnival rides, a petting zoo, cheer and dance squads, “game show mania,” an exhibi-tion by the Extreme Air stunt team, and daily appearances by chain-saw sculptor Dave Shelton. Rebecca Jackson, President and CEO, Chandler (AZ) Chamber of Com-merce was interviewed on the BBC as a result of the event.

Seward Polar Bear Jumpoff FestivalIn 1987, the Seward (AK) Chamber of Commerce helped found the first Seward Polar Bear Jump, when individuals dressed in costumes and jumped into Resur-rection Bay for charity. The next year, the event was renamed the Seward Polar Bear Jumpoff Festival and eventually expanded into a multi-day event held each Janu-ary. While the highlight of the festival is still the “Plunge” into the bay, other attractions include a dog sled race, ice bowling, waitress/waiter contests, oyster slurping, dog weight pull, snow machine rides, and something called the “ugly fish toss.” It has had state wide and national television, radio and print media coverage, including USA Today, Hard Copy, and Outside magazine.

Toad Suck DazeAccording to legend, the Conway, Ark., Toad Suck Daze festival draws its name from the days when steam-boats traveled the Arkansas River. When the river ran low, boat crews docked and frequented a tavern while waiting for the river levels to rise. Residents noted the patrons tendency to “suck on the bottle ‘til they swell up like toads.” Over the years, the toad-themed festival has gained national and some international fame as word of it has leapt beyond state boundaries. A map at the Toad store, which opened about a month before the festival to sell Toad Suck Daze T-shirts, shows attendees from 43 states, a few European countries and the Dominican Republic. Organizers say the festival attracts an average of 150,000 people each year and includes musical acts, hundreds of vendor booths, a 10-K race, pony rides and a Stuck on a Truck contest in which contestants try to be the last to keep their hand on a brand new Ford F-150 pickup. Additionally, the Conway Area (AR) Chamber of Commerce collects toads for the big “race.”

SNAPSHOT: THE NATURE OF EVENTS

the long run it’s worth the investment of time, money, staff, and stress. New York City restaurant impresario Danny Meyers (Union Square Café, Tabla, Eleven Madison Park) has gone so far as to offer post-shift massages for his wait staff, an indi-cation of how busy his restaurants get during the weeklong promo and how dedicated he is to making the event work for his restaurant and his staff. In all, be prepared to deal with any concerns of the business community on the timing or execu-tion of the event.

Following the moneyFinally, a big decision to make early on is whether or not this

event is going to be a fundraiser for the chamber or a tourism and image boost for the community. It’s not a foregone conclu-sion that the two approaches are mutually exclusive, but some times they are. Funding is important because it is imperative to have an advertising and public relations program, preferably backed by additional marketing collateral, in order to have a successful and dynamic event.


For restaurant weeks, make the din-ing price low according to your mar-ket. New York City offers three-course lunches for $20.12 and three-course dinners for $35. Other major markets have similar pricing structures, but every area is different. Many restaura-teurs may balk at offering three-course meals for a fixed amount. Others, how-ever, will embrace restaurant week as another opportunity to introduce the restaurant to new customers. Some chefs say it is worth the financial blow if participating customers return, and research compiled by NYC & Company for their restaurant week says two-thirds of them do.

Some chambers may want to charge restaurants or other participants a nominal fee to participate. This cer-tainly helps fund either administrative costs associated with the event or may be directed to the advertising budget. It could however, be a tough sell to the restaurant at a new event, when an increase in business is not yet a proven commodity.

For “taste of” events, tickets are usually sold for entrance, especially if the event features any sort of enter-tainment. For the Taste of Newport a few years ago, the Newport Beach (CA) Chamber of Commerce decided to upgrade its live music portion and drafted the Beach Boys to be the head-lining act. Tying in to their coastal and boat themes, the kings of surf music provided the boost the chamber was looking for and now the event brings in over $1 million in profit through ticket sales, booth sales, and sponsorships, an amount which is about 50 percent of the chamber’s budget. In other cases, a percentage of the sales from the event will go to the organizers.

However your chamber decides to pursue a big event with lots of great food, remember lines can get long. After you’ve spent the last six months preparing, organizing, and producing your event, don’t forget to make reser-vations for yourself.

Steve Haweeli is the President and Founder of WordHampton, a pub-lic relations firm in East Hampton which organizes the Hamptons Res-taurant Week. He can be reached at [email protected].

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a taste of restaurant weeksamerican siberia. as a rebuke of sorts, the st. paul (mn) chamber of...

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