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Serving trips to the cities - all for a good cause
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Published: July 22, 2009
Updated: 07/21/2009 08:20 pm
Lots of restaurants are looking for ways to drum up business in this economy. Big Shotz Tavern on Stratford Road has found a novel approach: raising money for a good cause and cheering up folks who can't afford a summer vacation.
Since June 26, Big Shotz Tavern has made every Friday "staycation" night, with live music, dinner specials and door prizes. Every night has a theme location and a special menu featuring the food of the chosen city.
Central to the event is folks from the Hospice & Palliative Care Center. The restaurant asks people to donate $5 to Hospice, and the Hospice folks are there to take donations and answer questions about its services.
A team effort
The idea came from Betty Ashby, one of the owners of Big Shotz, with help from Tina Stearns, a friend and the community liaison for Hospice. "We were talking about how the economy has affected both the restaurant industry and the nonprofit industry," Ashby said.
Around the same time, Ashby read a story about people planning "staycations" -- a vacation where they stay at home -- because household budgets are tight.
"I thought, hey, more people are staying home, but they need something fun to do," Ashby said.
Big Shotz has done fundraisers for other nonprofits. And it has live music regularly. But it has never done anything quite like this.
Winston-Salem venue
Ashby chose to do this at Big Shotz's Stratford Road location, and not in Clemmons, because the building on Stratford has a nice courtyard that's a good venue for live music. She got better bands than usual, she said, in part because some bands lowered their rates.
And she put her kitchen staff to work to find at least one drink, appetizer, entree and dessert from each of eight cities.
"The kitchen loves it," Ashby said. "When you have a set menu and you're making the same thing all the time, it's great to be able to do something different and creative."
The menu for Philadelphia included soft pretzels, Philly cheese steaks and rib-eye steaks marinated in Yuengling beer, which is made in Pottsville, Pa.
Sometimes, Big Shotz has been able to take items from its menu, such as the shrimp and grits for the Savannah theme night. Sometimes it tweaks dishes slightly. For instance, it already sells St. Louis ribs, but it added chicken to the ribs platter for St. Louis night.
I had a great fried-oyster salad on Savannah night. It was the Big Shotz Salad on the regular menu -- with oranges, red onion, pecans and bacon -- with good-size, crispy oysters on top.
Savannah night also included a Georgia peach martini, barbecue shrimp, filet Oscar, pecan-crusted tilapia and peach cobbler.
Last Friday's Chicago night featured brick-style onion ring loaf, Chicago-style hot-dog salad, Italian sausage and peppers hoagie, deep-fried cheesecake and more.
This Friday, Big Shotz will celebrate New Orleans food with a hurricane martini, shrimp jambalaya, crawfish pasta and other dishes.
"I think some of these things might end up on our regular menu," Ashby said, adding that the Yuengling rib-eye and toasted ravioli have been big hits.
Ann Gauthreaux, the director of public relations for Hospice, said that the fundraiser has been a success, raising about $2,000 in the first four weeks. "And our staff and volunteers have enjoyed it because they've been getting such nice feedback. People will say, ‘You took such good care of my grandmother,' and tell us how much they appreciated it."
Big Shotz is planning four more "staycation" nights through Aug. 14. So far, she said, it's hard to tell whether the fundraiser has boosted Big Shotz's Friday-night business. But Ashby is already thinking about doing a staycation fundraiser next summer.
"Whether we make any money or not, we've generated a tremendous amount of goodwill," Ashby said. "It just makes you feel good."
■ Michael Hastings, the Journal's Food editor, can be contacted by phone at 727-7394, e-mail at mhastings@wsjournal.com, or mail at c/o Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. His most recent columns can be read on our Web site at www.journalnow.com.
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