TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Isle restaurant teams
go to the big dance
in the Windy CityHawaii's restaurant industry elite and hope-to-be's are preparing for the granddaddy of industry trade shows.
The National Restaurant Association's 84th annual Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show will serve up tastings, technology and teaching for more than 75,000 participants May 17-20 in Chicago.
Among those flying out are Hawaii restaurateur Ed Wary, owner of Auntie Pasto's, Dixie Grill and Eddie's Burgers and Frozen Custard. He represents Hawaii on the National Restaurant Association's board of directors and goes early for board meetings.
Joining Wary will be Auntie Pasto's Kapahulu General Manager Leber Fitzpatrick, Dixie Grill Aiea General Manager Ruth King and restaurant Operations Director Jim Hamachek. The group will take in the new ideas, equipment and technology on the exhibition floor as well as some of the more than 50 seminars on everything from marketing to employee retention, Wary said.
"It rejuvenates us as restaurateurs, it's big and exciting and we're able to share and pick up on all these ideas," he said.
Hawaii Restaurant Association President Michele Van Hessen heads over a week in advance for activities involving the national association's educational foundation.
She also shops.
"I try to find different things I can offer high schools and college culinary schools, to find out what's available to help them," she said.
Some help is homegrown, like $7,000 from Douglas Williams, president of Kaneohe-based Douglas Trade Productions Inc. His contribution will send some Culinary Institute of the Pacific faculty and students to the event.
It's an opportunity for promotion and education, said Conrad Nonaka, interim director of the institute, which is a consortium of culinary programs in the University of Hawaii system. In conjunction with the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, the institute's delegation will help promote Hawaii products through food demonstrations, expose students to the enormity of possibilities within the industry and provide professional development for faculty members, Nonaka said.
The Hawaii pavilion is one of more than 1,950 exhibits; to walk each aisle on each floor of the show would cover 30 miles, Nonaka said.
After show hours, students and faculty will go on back-of-the-house tours of restaurants and brain-picking meetings with their operators.
"Hawaii has been recognized now as a culinary mecca," Nonaka said. "We want to stay there and perpetuate that by keeping up with the educational aspect, with the Culinary Institute of the Pacific."
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com