Chamber’s Restaurant Tour Was in Good Taste
The West Lawn Chamber of Commerce held its first Cinco de Mayo Taste restaurant tour on, of course, May 5. By all accounts, members and guests of the organization had a great time.
While the chamber had hoped to sell about 100 tickets for the tour of local restaurants on May 5, the purchase of 90 was still worth noting. The idea came from Mark Walden, the executive director of the chamber, who organized a similar tour that was called a “dessert crawl” in the Andersonville neighborhood a few years ago.
Walden took that successful idea and adopted it for West Lawn and neighboring communities. With an expanding Hispanic community, a Cinco de Mayo salute was a natural idea. The idea was to help develop an identity for the West Lawn Chamber while help putting it on the map.
While half of the board members are Hispanic, the Cinco de Mayo restaurant tour was not limited exclusively to Hispanic restaurants. Businesses welcomed the idea because May 5 landed on a Monday, which is usually not a big day for restaurant business.
And the feedback we have received is that the members and guests who took part in the tour would like to participate again if the tour is held next year. In that respect, the restaurant tour was a success.
Not only did it give an opportunity for members to go out and socialize, but it also gave them a chance to visit various restaurants in the community. In turn, it allowed some restaurants to broaden their appeal by bringing in new potential customers.
We applaud the efforts of Walden and the West Lawn Chamber by coming up with a creative and fun way for reaching out to the community during these tough economic times. We think a second Cinco de Mayo Taste of West Lawn will be even a bigger success.