Last night was the Worcester’s Best Chef competition at Union Station and we headed down expecting a typical mediocre crowd for a Sunday in Worcester.
Holy shit.
What we found was reminiscent of a sale on rakes at Spags circa 1978. There had to be 1500+ packed into the main hall at Union Station, shoulder to shoulder on the verge of fisticuffs over deliciousness. If that sounds negative, trust me it’s not the intention. This event was promoted so well, through a number of channels, any frustration lies with Worcesterites who are still learning how to operate in a crowd. I think we need a class, maybe Tim Cooney can set something up through the Central Massachusetts Safety Council, to teach defensive walking. We’ll build an obstacle course on the common and take turns navigating crowded walkways with over-poured drink in hand. And Tim can roll cardboard cutouts of aloof pedestrians in-front of us. Those who fail the course loose the right to operate their feet in public. Since this obviously genius safety plan is still in the works and out of fear that celebrity judge Mark Atlas would start a stampede if he did his thing, we bailed early.
Still hungry and slightly traumatized, we shot over to Coral Seafood to polish off the night. No such luck. Beautiful decor; quite possibly the most difficult exchange with wait-staff ever. I’ll leave it there as I’m feeling unusually generous today.
Now at the point of starvation we roll down to Bocado. As expected, fucking great. Food was great. Service was great. Decor? yup, great. Wine flights should be mandatory for all restaurants. I’m certainly not qualified as a food critic, so I’ll save you the punishment of a review. Just assume I’m right and the Block5/Bocado guys are some of a handful in Worcester who know what great service is.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I think if this were held at the DCU center it would have been a bit more managable as they are used to accomodating events of this size…but how could they have known that this event was going to be as successful as it was?? Perhaps the good folks who promoted this will be able to lock in the DCU center for next time. It certainly garnishes a ‘next time’.
For the biped-mobile challenged I think there could perhaps be guides to lead small batches of ‘packs’ in events like this one. That way people will still feel the safety in their selected numbers but the crowds will be mobile and not lost in the flow.
Hey Buck & “The Lady”. I don’t speak for Domenic Mercurio, who produced this event. But, I can say that we didn’t expect the crowd that came. 200+ people showed up and paid at the door. And pretty much every ticket that was printed was sold. Unfortunately, we didn’t find that out until Sunday morning when all of the offline ticket sales were tallied. There was also a late surge in online ticket buying in the last two days too. Over 2/3rds of the online tickets were sold in the last 2 1/2 days.
There were a lot of planning and logistics lessons learned. There will be a next year. And it’ll be much improved. We’ve been getting feedback from other people that attended and there is some very good ideas for next year that a bigger space will allow for.
Pete, No explanation needed. You guys put on a great show for everyone involved.
Glad to know about Bocado, louie and I will be sure to go this weekend.