2010 Restaurants
Atria Fairhaven  
Cotali Mar Restaurant  
Ella's Wood Burning Oven  
Freestone's City Grill  
Fresca Grill  
The Galley Grille at White's  
Healthy Grille Restaurant  
Harriet's Catering  
Ice Chest Bar & Grille  
Incognito Bistro & Lounge  
Inner Bay Restaurant  
Just Ray's Restaurant  
Lindsey's Family Restaurant  
M & C Café  
Me & Ed's Restaurant, Inc.  
Mike's Restaurant  
The Pasta House  
Rivers End Café  
Rose Alley Ale House  
Surf 'N' Turf

2010 Sponsors

Thank you to the following sponsors who have made this event possible:
ORGANIZERS
Downtown New Bedford, Inc.
PLATINUM SPONSORS
The Regency
GOLD PLUS
Bristol County Savings Bank
GOLD SPONSORS
Fleet Fisheries
Partridge Snow & Hahn, PC
Raymon, Pielech & Zexter, PC
SILVER SPONSORS
Aarsheim Fishing Co.
Citizens-Union Savings Bank
Coastal Orthopaedic Institute
Dias, Lapalme & Martin LLP
GNB Community Health Center
Norport, Inc. F/V Act IV
Rolands Tire Service
Sylvia Group of Insurance Agencies
Webster Bank
SPONSOR
Hunter Scalloper
Kathryn Marie Scalloper
SERVICE SPONSORS
ABC Disposal
City of New Bedford
Elaine's Home of the Black Whale
Integrity Mechanical, Inc.
mediumstudio
M-V Electrical Contractors, Inc.
New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park
Poyant Signs, Inc.
Reynolds DeWalt Printing Co.
SMILES
Sovereign Bank
STAT Ambulance
The Bedford Merchant

MEDIA SPONSORS
SouthCoast Insider
The Standard Times
WBSM 1420 AM/Fun107
WNBH

Fifth Annual Seaport Chowder Festival nearly perfect

Click here to see even more photos of this great event!

They say that practice makes perfect, and it must be true, because the Fifth Annual Seaport Chowder Festival was nearly perfect. Ninety eight percent of the people we reached in our annual Chowder Festival survey rated the event as either good or excellent. Not a single responder said it needed improvement.
 
One person from Rhode Island compared the event to the Newport Chowder Festival on her survey and said: “It’s better than Newport. The chowder is better. The layout is better. The kale soup is a big plus.”
 
Even the weatherman helped by providing enough chill in the air to make us think of soup.
 
The ingredients of a perfect chowder festival include:

• The chowder festival committee which works all year to make sure each year’s event tops the one of the year before.
• The 100 or so volunteers who do every chore imaginable including keeping the trash barrels clean. Many of them are five year Chowder Festival veterans.
• The staff of Downtown New Bedford, Inc. which works year round to bring in top notch restaurants, caterers, judges, bands and then organizes the whole day to turn it into a smoothly flowing event.
• The sponsors whose financial backing allows us to pay for tents, police details, bands and more.
• The judges who take their responsibilities in choosing the best clam chowders, seafood chowders, kale soups and stuffed quahogs very seriously.
• The restaurants and caterers, new and Chowder Festival veterans, who bring their best staff, chowders, soups and stuffed quahogs.  Although no two people make exactly the same kale soup, and seafood chowder is expected to be a little different from one place to another, you might be tempted to think that all New England style clam chowder tastes the same. It doesn’t. It’s amazing how each vendor takes the same core ingredients to come up with its own delicious interpretation of this classic.
• The bands that provide entertainment.
• The beer, wine and ice cream vendors.
• The fickle weatherman who can send thunder showers, searing heat or the just right temperatures of this year.
• An enthusiastic crowd that enjoys itself and spreads the word that the Downtown New Bedford, Inc. has the best chowder festival around.

Thanks to all who helped make this event so successful.

 
Although the goal of the festival is to provide enjoyment to the large crowd, it’s a competition too.
 
This year’s winners are:

Thank you to the Chowder Festival Planning Committee

Richard Poyant, Chairman of the Event, Poyant Signs, Inc.
Kevin T. Pelland, Co-Chairman - Citizens-Union Savings Bank
Daniel J.  Berry/Tara Pacheco, YMCA SouthCoast
Keri Cox, mediumstudio
Modesta Levesque, The Standard-Times
David Medeiros, Sovereign Bank
Ross Moran, PAACA
Jeff Pontiff – E. J. Pontiff Real Estate/Whaling City Expe
Whitney White - Volunteer
Diane Arsenault, DNB, Inc. Executive Director
Marianne Conley Hodgson, DNB, Inc. Administrative Assistant