RSS
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
Taste of the Independents
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Smith Bros. Hardware Building
580 N. 4th. St.
6:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.
$100 per person • Purchase Tickets
Dine Originals Columbus and Buckeye Ranch have partnered to bring you Taste of the Independents. Enjoy samples of the finest cuisine from over 33 locally-owned restaurants. Enhance your evening with micro brewed beers, wines from small vineyards and our “created just for the occasion” Mango Maytini. Greet friends and other foodies while listening to a 3 piece band from the Columbus Jazz Arts Group. This is sure to be a night filled with culinary delights! To purchase tickets click here or visit a member restaurant. For questions, please contact Tim Woodard at (614) 539-6637 or tim.woodard@buckeyeranch.org.
http://www.dineoriginalscolumbus.com/
THIS sounds like a sweet deal!
those are really fun! i went to the best of pittsburgh when I lived there, and it was great. lots of good beer and food.
i really wish i weren’t a broke ass student. : o(
amen to that.
Bringing this back up! Looks fun and delicious!
Good lord, $100 per person for 3 hours of food tasting? I couldn’t manage to spend that at Morton’s given 3 hours, unless I drank myself into oblivion. If you ask me the member restaurants should pony up more to help knock that price tag down.
That is always my beef with these kinds of things. Way too expensive. Although, I do think I could spend $100 in 3 hours in a restaurant. But, considering that you are doing it to promote your restaurant, you’d think it would be a little less. My only thought is they only want to attract a certain kind of clientele, so they keep the price high.
$100 is a bit steep for the average diner, but it does sound like a fairly high-end event to me. I’m sure the food there would be top notch.
Try to keep in mind that this is an event for charity, the Buckeye Ranch. No, it’s not cheap but it’s a great cause. It isn’t a money making event for the restaurants.
I will admit that I didn’t realize this one was a benefit: I worked one of these events a few years ago and it wasn’t a benefit, so I was poorly informed this time around. I dismissed the event without reading the invite too carefully because I can’t afford it and I’ll probably have to work that day, anyway.
That being said, this is a pet peeve of mine: where are the opps for younger people with less money? This is something I tried to get through to the WOSU people during one of the “Social Media” groups. Why aren’t you trying to get younger people involved with less $$? Is it not worth the effort? Seriously, I am curious. Where are the events for under $50 for YPs, or am I the only one in the city who doesn’t make over 100K? I’d love to support some of these things, but if you added them all up, it would be thousands and thousands of dollars a year.
for example, there is Celebrity Chef Showdown this month which features Cbus chefs and benefits the Museum of Art. I realize these events cost a lot to put on, etc. etc., but let’s think about it for a second. The Showdown is an “Iron Chef” style event, a TV show whose target demographic is males aged 18-34, at a venue where bands play who are primarily in the same demo, with females included. Tickets are $150 each!!
I realize it’s a fundraiser, but do they really only want money from rich old people? If I can only afford $50 – $75, am I not in their demographic? Am I the only one who feels this way? I like the museum, and would love to support them at a cool fundraiser, but $150 is a lot of money for me, and for a lot of people I know. At least the cool people I know.
oh, and unlike the “legit” media, I don’t have the unlimited resources of the Dispatch behind me to pay my way to all of these things, or secure free passes.
just a petite gripe after recently talking to a legit food writer who informed me how amazed they are, as a food writer employed by the Dispatch family of companies, that so much money is being thrown at the food writers there. How tired they get of having to eat out all the time
then they come up with brilliant ideas such as:
tracking your CSA!
shopping the farmer’s markets!
Ohio burger hunting!
restaurants which use locally grown ingredients!
but, at least I have the freedom to say whatever I want! :wink:
I just don’t bother with these things anymore. If I want to make a donation, I will make a donation to Buckeye Ranch and take 100$ write-off on my taxes instead of going to an event like this and taking 35$ deduction for my 100$ ticket. If I want to spend 100$ on food, I will go spend 100$ on dinner at a restaurant. The latter will be better instead of getting catering food anyway. But that is just me.
From the perspective of the production, I can tell you one factor. In order to make it worthwhile, they have to achieve X$. A venue will take Y people (w/o being miserable), so tickets will be X$/Y. To lower X, you raise Y which make the event both less prestiguous and more crowded/less fun.
A.
just a petite gripe after recently talking to a legit food writer who informed me how amazed they are, as a food writer employed by the Dispatch family of companies, that so much money is being thrown at the food writers there. How tired they get of having to eat out all the time
then they come up with brilliant ideas such as:
tracking your CSA!
shopping the farmer’s markets!
Ohio burger hunting!
restaurants which use locally grown ingredients!
but, at least I have the freedom to say whatever I want! :wink:
maybe you should do a story on sour grapes.
How about a story on people who use their very first post on a web board to make a drive-by, baseless and un-informed attack on a respected member of the community?
I have different opinions on food and restaurants than Lisa, but I respect her immensely. In the few years of her blog, she has done more for the food community in Columbus than years of useless and ignorant tools who have written on food for the Columus Dispatch.
A.
A couple random things to muse on.
Taste of the Independents is from the Dineoriginals group – 30+ independent restaurants in Columbus. They are donating time, staff, and food for the event. They also offer great deals on gift certificates via their web site – you can get a $25 certificate for $17.50 – that helps the poor masses. I just saw the documentary Independent America which is about the need to support local, independent business.
Also, for the local connection – Trish Gentile from Basi works at Buckeye Ranch. Basi is a Dine Original Restaurant. She, her husband John and many others put in long hours to make Taste of the Independents draw in cash for a worthy cause.
Columbus Underground has had two food events which were low cost, high return events that supported and promoted local businesses.
Dagwood Challenge
CU Pizza Grand Prix
So – if we want an alternative to expensive food events – we have to create them ourselves. And it is something we can do.
I am digging in to my pockets to go to Taste of the Independents – May 1, The Grape Event – May 2, and making a donation when I go to the North Market Apron Gala on May 17th. I am just happy that we have choices and I am happy we are working on adding more choices for everyone at every price range.
A good recent example – the Slow Food events – these are about $35.
How about a story on people who use their very first post on a web board to make a drive-by, baseless and un-informed attack on a respected member of the community?
I have different opinions on food and restaurants than Lisa, but I respect her immensely. In the few years of her blog, she has done more for the food community in Columbus than years of useless and ignorant tools who have written on food for the Columus Dispatch.
A.
thanks A – that’s the nicest thing anyone has said about me all week! :D
just a petite gripe after recently talking to a legit food writer who informed me how amazed they are, as a food writer employed by the Dispatch family of companies, that so much money is being thrown at the food writers there. How tired they get of having to eat out all the time
then they come up with brilliant ideas such as:
tracking your CSA!
shopping the farmer’s markets!
Ohio burger hunting!
restaurants which use locally grown ingredients!
but, at least I have the freedom to say whatever I want! :wink:
maybe you should do a story on sour grapes.
sour grapes? I suppose I can see how you might say that. I love blogging about food. I love my readers, I love creating dishes and finding new restaurants and shopping the farmers markets and educating my readers. That being said, I finance the entire venture myself. It’s a labor of love, truly. Frequently cost prevents me from doing everything I’d like to do for my readers and my website, so when I talk to food writers who flippantly toss off the fact that they get enough $$ from the Dispatch family of companies to eat out every meal every day of the year wherever they want, well, it does chafe a bit.
How about a story on people who use their very first post on a web board to make a drive-by, baseless and un-informed attack on a respected member of the community?
I have different opinions on food and restaurants than Lisa, but I respect her immensely. In the few years of her blog, she has done more for the food community in Columbus than years of useless and ignorant tools who have written on food for the Columus Dispatch.
A.
+1000
Just an FYI – I haven’t done a writeup yet, but I’ve already uploaded my pics of the event to Flickr for those of you who want a sneak peek. :)
The slideshow can be found here
I went tonight – it was awesome. The weather was perfect. The Smith Brothers building is a grand venue with a fantastic view of downtown. Many of the chefs and owners were there serving their food. Liz Lessner had offerings from all three restaurants, Alana’s was wonderful, Basi had some wonderful tuna, Rigsby’s offered up some wonderful dishes – Ragu of Berkshire Pork shoulder over Polenta. I could go on and on. Wine pours were generous. The Elevator Brewing Company had their standard great beers and a killer potato chip starter. It was a great event for a good cause – I am glad I went. Becky and her husband took some really good photos so make sure to read the full lowdown on her blog. Go Columbus!
Independent Food Capital…..
Coming up
Grape Event – May 2 – great wine – average catered food.
North Market Cinco D’Ohio – May 3 – Awesome tacos from Basi, Alana’s Cajohns
North Market Apron Gala – May 17….support your market!!!!!!
I attended this event and had a pretty good time.
I came away from it knowing that I have to get over to Cafe’ Corner ASAP!