It was the best Chowder Festival ever. What Hurricane Irene took away by causing event postponement, she gave back by providing a perfect day for chowder and kale soup. The radio announcements about the postponement gave more people more chances to hear about the Chowder Festival and decide to go.

There was a touch of fall in the air when as many as 3,000 people, one of the biggest crowds ever, attended the sixth annual Historic New Bedford Seaport Chowder Festival on Sunday, September 18 in Custom House Square.

Seventeen restaurants, caterers and food purveyors served a variety of chowders, kale soups and stuffed quahogs. There were old friends, like M&C Café, Me & Ed’s, and Freestone’s City Grill, who have participated in most if not all of the chowder festivals. A repeat winner in the clam chowder category, St. Luke’s Hospital, returned to try its hand in a new category, kale soup, a move that paid off. There were newcomers too, like Mar-Lees Seafood and Vivvy’s whose table presentations and food were award winning.

At the awards presentation, DNB, Inc. President Kevin Pelland said, “There are no losers here. Everyone who participated is a winner.” Following on this theme, Mayor Scott Lang asked the crowd to patronize all of these places. “Keep the dollars in the community. And give gift certificates.”

The mayor also thanked Downtown New Bedford, Inc. as a tremendous organizer of this event, mentioning Kevin Pelland and Diane Arsenault, Executive Director of DNB, Inc. specifically. In addition he mentioned the restaurants, the providers and the sponsors. He singled out the city employees, police, DPW, DPI and fire department who all help to make this a family friendly and safe event.

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The participants were:

Chowder and soup are measured in different ways by different people. Some restaurants measure it by the pan, some in the number of 2 oz cups they used, some in gallons. St. Luke’s Hospital served fourteen pans of kale soup, about 2,500 servings. Freestone’s served 20 – 25 gallons of seafood chowder. Any way you measure it, a lot of food was served, at least 30,000 individual servings, probably more.

Every year we ask participants to rate their experiences and suggest improvements. This year 67% of the people questioned said the experience was excellent, 29% good. No one ranked the event as fair or as needing improvement.

You cannot serve three thousand people thirty thousand servings of food so smoothly that they give it high grades without lots of help.

DNB, Inc. is fortunate to have had financial sponsors. Without them we could not put on events that bring so many people into the city while at the same time raising funds to help DNB, Inc. fulfill its goal of making downtown New Bedford an economically healthy, welcoming, vibrant place to work, live, shop, dine and visit

Thank you to the Chowder Festival Planning Committee!
EVENT Co-Chairs: Kevin T. Pelland-Citizens-Union Savings Bank; Ross Moran- Citizen School./Richard Poyant- Poyant Signs, Inc.
Committee Members: Daniel J. Berry - YMCA SouthCoast; Modesta Levesque, The Standard-Times;
David Medeiros, Sovereign Bank; Larissa McLaughlin – DNB Board of Directors; Jill White, Webster Bank; Diane Arsenault, DNB, Inc. Executive Director;Marianne Conley Hodgson, DNB, Inc. Administrative Assistant
Judges: Henry Bousquet, Devon Byrnes, Michael Rock

Thank you to the following sponsors who have made this event possible:
ORGANIZERS Downtown New Bedford, Inc.
GOLD SPONSORS:Aarsheim Fishing Co./Norport, Inc. F/V Act IV - LeBaron Hills County Club - LarsonAllen CPA's - Mar-Lees Seafood
SILVER SPONSORS:Citizens-Union Savings Bank - Coastal Orthopaedic Institute - Cornell Dubilier Electronics, Inc. -Dias, Lapalme & Martin LLP - GNB Community Health Center - Kathryn Marie Scalloping -Kitchen Magic - Limelight Deals - Partridge Snow & Hahn, PC - People, Inc. - Roland's Tire -Sylvia Group of Insurance Agencies- Webster Bank
ASSOCIATE SPONSOR:Rockland Trust - Debross Hathaway Marvel, Inc. - Sea Fuels Marine Services - Saint Anne Credit Union
SERVICE SPONSORS :City of New Bedford - James J. Long Electric – mediumstudio - New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park - Poyant Signs, Inc. - Reynolds DeWalt Printing Co. - Sheriff Thomas Hodgson -Sovereign Bank - STAT Ambulance - The Bedford Merchant
MEDIA SPONSORS: The Standard Times/Southcoast Media

And then there are the volunteers, not just any volunteers, but super volunteers who know how to perform every Chowder Festival job flawlessly. Need judges for the blind tastes that determine the judges’ prizes? We have volunteers for that. Need people to take tickets at the gate and sell tickets for drinks? We have volunteers for that? Need people to keep the garbage cans cleaned out? We have volunteers for that. Need people to count ballots in a timely manner? We have volunteers for that, for supervising kids arts and crafts, for keeping the restaurants supplied with what they need and just about any task a chowder festival requires. There are about 75 volunteers in all.

Outside the food tent were vendors for desserts, drinks and this year even cocktails. The band Captain Malibu and Friends, a new group, performed at the beginning of the event. Shipyard Wreck, a popular group which has performed at every Chowder Festival entertained the crowd throughout the afternoon.

Across the street the YMCA held lobster races, another popular event, featuring four lobsters competing to set lobster racing records. Lots of people had high hopes for the lobster named Big Red Papi, but unfortunately he finished about the same way the Red Sox did, an audible disappointment to the crowd which held out hope right until the end.

A huge thank you to each person who helped make this such a successful event.
See you again next year!