Savage’s world famous Dan Patch Days starts today and features a variety of family friendly events for all ages. One of their events, which takes place on Saturday beginning at 4 PM is the Taste of Savage. Unfortunately, as is usually the case with these events, it’s dominated by chains and has strange rules and regulations which makes it difficult to attract decent restaurants and thus crowds of enthusiastic patrons to the respective businesses which should be profiled.
According to the Dan Patch Days website, there were 18 available spots for the 2009 Taste of Savage but as the Savage Pacer article above states, there were only 16 spots taken by area businesses, 12 of which are local or national chains. As I mentioned above, this type of setup seems to plague every “Taste Of” event in the South Metro with both the Taste of Lakeville and the Bite of Burnsville events being dominated by chain restaurants, some of which weren’t even from the respective event’s city! Why is that? Is it because the small local places aren’t interested in attending the event and building a local name for themselves or is it because the rules and regulations make it difficult for those interested in attending to do so?
Let’s take Lakeville and Savage’s most recent events to look into this a bit:
1. Lakeville’s most recent event required that those who attended be 21 years of age or greater due to the alcohol component. While many local restaurants in Lakeville serve alcohol, it’s not as if they deny entry to those that are underage to come through their doors. I don’t have children but from what I understand the endless nagging that is generated due to children tugging at the shorts of their parents to get their way has a lot to do with many family’s dining choices. Why limit the number of people who are exposed to an event by discriminating on age? Yeah, they had a laundry list of alcohol vendors at the event to attempt and bury the astonishing number of national chains but why they couldn’t make a beer garden and be done with it I’ll never know.
2. Lakeville had a cost prohibitive entry fee. $30 in advance or $35 at the door. I don’t know about you but I’m not terribly interested in paying $30+ to eat samples of pancakes from Perkins or pre-made lunch items from Rainbow.
3. Savage gave priority to those who were a member of the Chamber of Commerce:
For 2009, the Taste of Savage will be offered FIRST and FOREMOST to restaurants that are current Chamber of Commerce members. Only 18 restaurants can participate! Chamber members will receive a discount entrance fee– $100 vs. $150 for any non-members accepted to participate. Chamber membership investments start at only $240.
So for those smaller businesses that may not have the finances available to join or the desire, they may feel uncomfortable signing up and/or are locked out of this event. Seems to give quite an unfair advantage to the national chains and more established businesses rather than the newer/mom and pop operations. This is not supposed to be an advertisement for the Savage Chamber of Commerce, it’s supposed to be advertising for local businesses which help to make everyone else in town survive!
I think that this is yet another reason why chain restaurants are favored more heavily over the mom and pop shops in our area. Not only do these places have the national marketing but they also have greater support and preferential treatment from the local chambers as well which gives them a much larger local audience at a higher cost than may be affordable in a difficult market.
What do you think about the local taste of events and how they operate? Do you believe that something else should be done to better promote local business success so we don’t end up with more locally owned businesses heading down the drain like so many others have? Whatever you think go ahead and comment on!
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June 25th, 2009 at 11:59 am
The only taste festival I’ve ever been to that’s been worth it was the Taste of Chicago, back in the 90s. It’s also been ruined by national and huge local chains. This phenomenon is also on display at the taste of Minnesota. I went to the Taste of Minnesota for the first time last year (even though I’ve lived in the Twin Cities for 10 years) and I will not be going back.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Well shit. ;-) Are there enough food places in those cities to have “taste of” events if you don’t have the chains? I guess if I was going to run one of those events, I do it like this.
#1 – If you’re a chain store, you need to show me why you’re different from any other one of your sister stores. Otherwise, you’re out. (I.e., there may be an independently owned chain that does some things their own way)
#2 – If you’re not a chain, I expect you to bring your best.
#3 – I’d promote the heck out of the event. The savage thing is just tacked on to Dan Patch Days. I’d try to set it apart more, perhaps with a before 7pm more family fair, and then after 7pm, more adult oriented food.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I can’t be positive, but I think the Taste of Lakeville doesn’t have a beer garden because it’s a food and wine festival first and foremost, where wine is meant to be consumed with some of the foods available. At least in theory.
Also, it’s logistically easier to make it 21+ considering it’s volunteer run.
Finally, I can’t remember Perkins or Rainbow having simple things like pancakes and sandwiches. For the most part, gourmet and specialty food is provided from places like Brackett’s Crossing, the Charthouse, and Divine Swine. This year, vendors who were looking for a space in the event had to provide a sample of what they were going to be serving to the Rotary committee that organized the event. The goal was to keep out the kind of foods you described.
The result: each booth was filled and a record amount of people showed up. The Taste of Lakeville was a sellout. I’m not sure there are any “roadblocks” in its case.
That said, I’d like to see more local joints and local fare, but maybe Mikeh is right — maybe there just aren’t enough smaller, locally owned places that can be a part of it.
As for the price: It’s $30 for ALL YOU CAN EAT AND DRINK wine, food and a small stable of beer to go with live music. I don’t think it’s that bad of a deal … but that’s just me and that’s just the Taste of Lakeville. I can’t speak for other events.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
*woosh*
June 25th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
At the Taste of Lakeville, not at their restaurant. Give me a little more credit. :)
June 25th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Out of curiosity, what did Perkins serve at the Taste of Lakeville?
June 25th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I’m pretty sure Perkins had an assortment of their pies. But I could be wrong. Frankly I didn’t stop to eat from there. I haven’t a clue what Rainbow Foods had … I’d only be guessing.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
In talking to the good folks at Ronin, they said business really picked up after they did one of the taste of events. I am pretty sure it was “Taste of Lakeville.” So on some level at least, these events are a good thing.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Chad, the trick is being the one or two out of the 16 places that is actually:
- A good restaurant
- In the town of the festival
So, of course it was a boon for Ronin (as well as, hopefully, the publicity of groups like us that are desperately trying to find ways to spread the word).
Anyway…the $30 I would have spent at Taste of Lakeville ($60 if you count my lovely wife) went to a good, local restaurant I’m sure. Or several.
June 26th, 2009 at 6:45 am
The primary reason for the Taste of Lakeville is to raise money for scholarships. It is run by the Rotary as a fundraiser . Given that it sells out, you aren’t going to attract more people by lowering the price, you would just be raising less money for scholarships.
Some of the food was terrific, Bracketts and Ronin in particular, and some not so inspiring (to me, but perhaps to others), but there are plenty of choices. It is a great event, and has developed a very loyal following. In fact, my neighbors were just discussing it last night, and talking about how much they enjoyed it, particularly the variety of food that was available.