Chamber marks another successful year for Taste of Carter County
Published 9:22 pm Thursday, October 12, 2017
- Star Photo/Abby Morris-Frye An attendee to the Taste of Carter County flashes a smile as she shows off a tray full of samples.
A crowd of hungry patrons turned out Thursday evening for the annual Taste of Carter County.
An estimated 250 people purchased tickets to sample a dozen of the local community’s restaurants and to support local non-profit agency Isaiah 117 House.
This year marked not only a new date but a new location for the annual event. In years past the Elizabethton/Carter County Chamber of Commerce hosted the Taste in September. This year, Chamber officials decided to hold the event in October instead to avoid interfering with other community events going on in September. For the past two years, the Taste of Carter County was held at Elizabethton High School. This year the event moved to the Tennessee College of Applied Technology.
“I think it went great,” Chamber Director Tonya Stevens said following the event Thursday evening. “We had a constant flow of people coming through. It was easy for everyone to move around and our vendors had plenty of space.”
Stevens estimated the crowd to be around 250 people, but said a final attendance number wouldn’t be known until after the Chamber counts all of the tickets as several admissions were sold at the door Thursday evening.
Those in attendance got to sample different dishes from each of the 12 participating restaurants with everything from meatloaf to pumpkin cheesecake to barbecue to pineapple sorbet available choose from.
“There was so much variety here tonight,” Stevens said.
Even with a last minute restaurant change, the event still went smoothly, Stevens said. Originally, Pizza Hut signed up to participate as a vendor but they were forced to step out due to a water issue at their restaurant.
“We had already been talking with Pizza Ria and that opened up the opportunity for them to step in and we’re glad they did,” Stevens said.
Attendees were given a card to have checked off as they visited each restaurant’s station. After they were done, attendees were asked to vote for their favorite restaurant of the night.
Steven said those votes will be tallied and the winning restaurant will be announced later.
