The road to SoBe, Pt. 9

The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival kicks off Thursday, Feb. 25. Panther Nathalie Cortes is back with another Blue & Gold Blog entry chronicling her road to “SoBe.”

Week of Feb. 22, 2010

Several Panthers, like Nathalie Cortes, will rub elbows with four of Miami's leading chefs at the Wine + Dine + Design event Feb. 27 during "SoBe," including Michelle Bernstein and Jonathan Eismann.

It’s the week of the event, and I’m thrilled to be working on a new event as part of the 2010 Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival. It’s called Wine + Dine + Design and it’s a dine-around in the Miami Design District with four participating restaurants: Pacific Time, Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, Fratelli Lyon and Sra. Martinez.

Four groups of 70 people each (for a total of 280 guests) will start at each of the four restaurants, simultaneously, for their first course. Then, they will rotate for their second, third and dessert courses, escorted by FIU student associates. At the end of the night each guest will have had four courses, one at each of the aforementioned restaurants. After that, everyone is invited to the after-party at Ornare.

Elaina Moran, the event manager, and I have been working with the owners of the four restaurants since last October. The chefs have created their menus and have selected the accompanying wines. Working with them is just one of the many details we have taken care of. We have been working very diligently to take care of the parking, entertainment, registration, event timing and sponsors.

On the day of (Saturday, Feb. 27) we are really counting on the student associates to make this event successful. We have two different groups of students working the event: those working registration and the greeters. We also have three culinary students working with chef Jonathan Eismann of Pacific Time.

The registration associates will be in charge of ensuring that guests start at their assigned restaurants – the name of the starting restaurant has been printed on the guests’ tickets. The registration associates will give each guest a color wristband (yellow, blue, red or green) to be used to identify the four groups throughout the night.

Once the event starts, it will be up to the greeters to ensure guests are moving on schedule from one restaurant to the next. The greeters are working with group hosts who are also TV anchors: Channel 7’s Belkys Nerey, Channel 4’s Lissette Gonzalez, Channel 6’s Trina Robinson and Channel 10’s Will Manso. The anchors are counting on the greeters to keep them on schedule. If one group falls behind this could affect the timing of the entire event.

At each restaurant, the registration associates will be checking the color wristbands to make sure every guest coming in belongs to the group currently being seated at that restaurant.

We have a very strong, responsible group of students assigned to these positions. I have met with each one of them. It has been important for them to understand how the event works and how much we need them. We are relying on them. All of our student associates are very enthusiastic about the event. I know they will be great and will help make this event a total success.

To read more blog entries from Panthers working on the 2010 South Beach Wine & Food Festival, click here.