This weekend, 19 local business are getting together to give people a taste of Madras.
“So we are planning the taste of Madras, which is an effort to get more people to stay in Madras and get a taste of what it has to offer,” said Nina Nelson, the vice president of the Madras Downtown Business Association Board.
The event provides everyone a checklist and map of downtown, showing the businesses involved and their specials for the event.
If you get 10 business stamps, you can enter into a drawing for $100.
Don’t worry about planning your day, as the event lasts each business’ Saturday hours.
“For instance you can go into one place and get a cup of coffee and a free cookie sample or we’ve got some five-dollar appetizers,” Nelson said.
“Myself, I’m making a mac and cheese pulled pork sundae I’m calling it,” said Thomas Lubinski, the owner of The Wandering Chef food truck.
“I have my pork tonkatsu which is only available on Friday and Saturday and it’s going to be a fun experience,” said Matt Courtney the owner of WildFyre food truck, “We’re trying to get everybody out.”
Taste of Madras is one of many upcoming events for the town, which is trying to recruit more business after the economic boom brought on by the 2017 solar eclipse.
“It’s nice that Madras is finally catching up to the rest of Central Oregon,” Lubinski said.
“We’re something special,” Courtney said, “Something different than Bend. Bend is a little bit bigger than us and now starting to become a big city and we still have that small town feel.”
Courtney told me that with Madras’ population growing, more unique food opportunities will begin to show, along with more events like this.
“People have been really supportive of local restaurants, local chefs, really supporting the community, and I’ve had a lot of regular customers come back two, three, four times a week,” Courtney said.
“But we really just wanted to get people more familiar with what Madras has because everybody does just go to Bend or Redmond so we want to highlight what we have here,” Nelson said.
The businesses participating are:
- Charlie’s Pizza
- Chely’s Hot Dogs
- Chino’s Aguas
- El Burrito Loco
- El Mercandito Latino
- Great Earth
- Jefferson County Library
- La Cabanita
- Mexico City
- Mi Casa
- Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant
- Reynoso’s
- Rio
- Teal Rose Coffee
- The Rusty Swine
- The Wandering Chef
- WildFyre
- Whiskey Pie Pizza
- Wild Winds
You can find the link to the event here.
