You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
As you all know, we love, love, love talking food and wine here at Bloomberg Business Week. It's always highlighted in the Bloomberg Pursuit section of the magazine. With that in mind, the Food Network New York City Wine and Food Festival about to get underway. Have you ever gone?
I want to ask our next guest about it, because I have not.
Shamefully, you're missing, missing I am. It's October twelfth through the fifteenth brings together who's who in the food and wine space. Chef's Danielle Boulu. We have had him on our air many many winny more from the industries to tell us about it is Lee Schrager, founder and executive director of the New York City Wine and Food Festival, joining us on zoom in New York City.
Lee, how are you good to see you ladies? How's everything doing well?
Doing well? I feel like on a daily basis I could use a good meal and a great glass of wine. Having said that, you guys, bet are in what your sixteenth year? Tell us about it? Remind us about how it all came to be and how it's evolved and your relationship with the Food Network and bringing this all to life.
Well, sixteen years and you have not been once.
That is horrible. I've been to the Money.
Don't look at me.
I've been to the I've been to South Beach for that version.
Okay, okay, Well that's how it all started. It started actually in South Beach about twenty four years ago. Actually, excuse me. We're going to our twenty three third year in February and South Beach and I started that really just after attending the Aspen Wine and Food Festival about
twenty five years ago. I remember flying home, and that's before the days of cell phones and Instagram, and I remember kind of making notes saying, Wow, this is an amazing event and it would be great in South Beach. And that's how it all started. So I waited about five or six years after I really felt comfortable in New York City before, after I felt comfortable in South Beach, before I went ahead and launched the New York City Wine.
And Food Festival.
So you know, as you mentioned, it's celebrating sixteen years. We are eating, drinking, and feeding New York City. The proceeds from the festival benefit God's Love. We deliver an amazing not the profit that you know, delivers food and nutritionally balanced food and medically talented meals for people who can't, you know, prepare their own food in New York City. And it's kicking off next Thursday and through the sixteenth.
We have about one hundred events, everything from about forty five small intimate dinners with chefs like Danielle Valoude and Jean Jre Vanderkin and Lendu Cass and Michael White and Tyler Flawrence and all those John Frasier. We have great late night signature events at the Intrepids here. We're kicking off on Thursday night with a big Italian feast hosted by Alex Garnachelly from the Food Network. Friday night is
our Big Burger Bash hosted by Rachel Ray. Saturday night is a big Taco event hosted by the cast of The Kitchen from the Network along with Aaron Paul and Brian Cranston will be there co hosting that event and sampling their mescal. And on Sunday, we are celebrating fifty years of hip hop with a great hip hop event about twenty five of the New York Area's greatest black chefs, MC by Cameron Hall and Angela Yee, with for special
performances by Revron and DJ Cassidy and Iced Tea. So brand new event for us, we couldn't be more excited to be celebrating hip hop.
I will say yes, yes, and yes, it's funny that you say the Big Burger Bash, because I remember being there. We did a broadcast from the South Beach one in Food Festival, I think it was back in twenty fourteen, and I remember doing a piece on the burger competition and talking to Rachel about it and Chrissy Teagan was a judge, and it was just it was this wonderful atmosphere of food and wine and partying and just music and it was really interesting. I'm curious, though, why why
South Beach first? And then why you kind of waited a little bit before coming into New York.
Well two good answers for that. A. I live in South Florida, so I started there. B Because nothing is easy in New York.
And I really want say that again.
I really wanted to make sure we kind of worked everything out before we went into a city that really was not forgiving in the sense, you know, they expect the best, and I wanted to deliver the best. So when I felt comfortable that we were as good as we were going to get or as good as we could get, to start moving forward and I felt comfortable, that's how it happened.
So Lee asking for a friend here, obviously, But if you've never been to the Food Festival, the Food and Wine Festival, sorry, what would you tell somebody a newcomer, what to expect, how to prepare, how much to budget for something like this, and what kind of events should you really be zooming in on. It seems like there's just so much to choose from in so little time, and so.
I would really if it's if you're a first timer. You know a lot of people who come for the first time want to try so many things, and although we would like to sell a lot of tickets to you, I'd rather you do less and appreciate it because it gets exhausting. If you're doing a runch next Friday with Martha Stewart and Daniel Blow with Tiffany, and then you're going to go to the Grand Tasting in the daytime, then you're going to go to the Bergabash at night time.
That's a lot, and I think it's too much. So I always say to somebody, pick a daytime event and one nighttime event, or a daytime event and one late night event, or a dinner event and a late night event, and really enjoy it. You know, wear comfortable shoes, drink responsibly, and you know, don't overdo it. And you know there's a lot of food, there's a lot of drink. New York City is not easy to get around with traffic,
so I kind of pick where. You know, even myself, I pick where I'm going and keep to one keep to an area every night. So I try to maximize the events I can go.
Tole We just got about forty five seconds. How do you figure out where you want to focus from year to year? Are there certain trends out there? Because there's certain mainstays, it sounds like, and then there's certain new things that you introduce.
Well, we always want to bring back the classics, things like the Taco Event and the Burger Bash, and like the hip Hop is new it was you know, it's the anniversary of hip hop. So I really felt that we should capitalize that and you know, really promote diversity, which is so important to us. So we'll always want to keep it fresh, not only for my team and myself,
but for the consumers. So you know, I think by keeping it fresh, we continue to be motivated and excited and our consumers who were buying our tickets remain the same.
All Right, We're going to come back with Lee Schrager. He's founder and executive director of the New York City Wine and Food Festival and our thanks to him. Be sure to check out the festival October twelfth through the fifteenth, twenty twenty three. Of course this year, and he was joining us on Zoom in New York City. You can also check out more online about all of the days in the programming