Summers are supposed to be slow, but ours wasn’t.
We ran a program in the Rockies, made a very big list, helped a book hit #1, and opened the doors on several new restaurants. Here’s what actually happened—spreadsheets and sunrise hikes included.
THE FOOD & WINE CLASSIC IN ASPEN
First stop: the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, where four days felt like four weeks in the best way possible. We ran the American Express x Resy Trade Program, powered by F&W Pro, from setup to teardown: opening tastings, panels, Leader Labs, sunrise yoga, trail hikes, a café built around F&W’s Game Changers, and a closing dinner that ran well into the night. Our job was to manage the thousand small decisions behind the scenes, so the Food & Wine team could focus on the program itself. We worked hard, ate well, and came down the mountain with a few new favorite trails and even better friends. Read the recap here.
We got home just in time for a different kind of recognition.
WE MADE THE INC. 5000
Fourteen years of that same kind of work, mostly out of view, landed us on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies or the first time. After fourteen years of work, it still felt like a surprise when the list came out.
Just a short time later, a project we’d been quietly building for months finally broke loose.
CARO HIT #1
The newest cookbook from Caroline Chambers, What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list and peaked at #3 on Amazon in overall book sales. Good Morning America had her on two mornings in a row, and Bon Appétit, Forbes, and Southern Living all named it a best new cookbook—just to call out a few highlights. We’d been working on this campaign with Caro for months before any of it was visible, and the tour we planned spans 13 cities with sold-out crowds and two stops left to catch her live: Carmel Valley on Sept. 12 and Chicago on Oct. 21, tickets still available for Chicago!
NOW OPEN
Books weren’t the only thing opening this summer. We helped bring six new restaurants to life, including a Taiwanese New American spot from Chef Ming Pu in Louisville, a coastal Italian rooftop in Charleston, and a neighborhood Italian-American eatery with its own cocktail tavern tucked upstairs in Memphis.
- TANA — Louisville, KY
- Riva Mare —Charleston, SC
- Josephine Estelle and Rosie’s Tavern — Memphis, TN
- O-Ku — Tampa, FL
- Indaco — Alys Beach, FL
- Songbird — Raleigh, NC
AND
Some of our clients made headlines this summer that had nothing to do with openings.
Lulu Gribbin, the 17-year-old shark attack survivor turned advocate for fellow amputees, sat down with Tom Llamas for a “Great Americans” profile on NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas.
Bayonet earned a spot on the prestigious Bon Appétit “Best New Restaurants” list for chef Rob McDaniel’s inventive way with Gulf seafood dishes, like rudderfish aguachile and cold-smoked swordfish belly on a Reuben.
Skyline Lodge, the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired retreat in Highlands, NC, showed up in the T: The New York Times Style Magazine summer travel guide.
And Tip Top Proper Cocktails’ Mai Tai made the cut on the Today Show‘s list of beach-ready drinks.
