Taste of Graham, Chamber Banquet kick off next week

The Graham Chamber of Commerce is kicking off their annual Chamber Banquet and the Taste of Graham event next Tuesday at the Young County Arena. Each year, the event highlights certain businesses and individuals throughout the city who have made a difference with the Grahammy awards.

There are four awards presented alongside the restaurant awards from the Taste of Graham which are Volunteer of the Year, Business of the Year, Citizen of the Year and the Graham Salt Works Award. The awards ceremony annually honors those in the community who give back through community service, commerce or volunteer work. Graham Chamber of Commerce CEO Krisa De La Cruz said one major change has happened this year regarding the restaurant awards from the Taste of Graham.

“We are not doing a competition this year, so the restaurants in Graham are amazing and essentially decided that they would prefer to work together as an industry instead of compete against one another,” De La Cruz said. “Since each restaurant is really giving so much that evening of their time and their service and their resources to be there and to serve the community, they really wanted it to be more like they were all working together instead of trying to compete for a trophy. Which I thought was a really neat thing to hear, because a lot of times you hear from industries that just compete against each other, but this group in particular is really interested in building each other up and really even extending advice and offering help to our newer restaurants.”

There will be 17 restaurants at the Taste of Graham event this year, which instead of facing off against one another will be looking to receive something different from attendees, De La Cruz said.

“This year, instead of voting tickets we are giving each attendee a thank-you card that they can fill out and drop in one of the boxes next to the restaurants, so the restaurants can then take a box of thank-you cards home with them and read those when they get home or that next week,” De La Cruz said. “We felt like that would really drive the appreciation factor a little bit, which is really the message we want to send that we appreciate all of the participating restaurants.”

Before the Taste of Graham, the night begins with a wine tasting from McPherson Winery at 6 p.m. under the stands adjacent to the Barclay Room at the arena. The event will be catered by 526 Pizza Studio and will cost $30 for chamber members and $50 for non members. The Taste of Graham event will begin at 7 p.m. and at 8 p.m. the Chamber Banquet and awards ceremony will begin. De La Cruz said one of the goals of the organizers is to keep the event short for the attendees while also allowing them time to sample what Graham has to offer.

The theme for the banquet is the roaring 20s’ and De La Cruz said the decor will match the theme. Businesses can also decorate a table and be entered into a contest to win a breakfast provided by the chamber.

Tickets for chamber members are $35, or $250 for a table of eight, and individual tickets are $50 for non chamber members. For more information regarding the event, contact the chamber at 940-549-3355.

For the full story, see the Wednesday, Jan. 22 edition of The Graham Leader.