Hi NYS/CT board! In an effort to help get this board rolling and get everyone talking, ieatalotoficecream, biondanonima, coll, gastronomos, and I thought we would reach out to all of you to share our vision for the board and give you a space to share your ideas for growing the community too. Our two states have a bounty of delicious food and beverages and this is a great gathering place for us to share and discuss all of our finds in a friendly, welcoming environment.
As always, restaurant reviews (both on new places and new takes on old places!) are great, and general sharing of restaurant information is always helpful. We would love to see a greater focus on personal experiences (with detail that will hopefully draw new readers to our forum), rather than basic posts about what may have opened or closed that do not encourage a dialogue. We will be adding a few “best-of” category threads-- burgers, pizza, bagels, for example (more ideas welcome!). What other kinds of posts would you like to see?
We would like to encourage you to reach out to people who may be interested in joining our board and growing our discussions. The more people that are involved, the better our community and discussions become! Where do you think we should be reaching out to find more interested members?
We will be posting the date of our first NYS/CT HOdown soon so we can all get to know each other. If you have ideas for similar gatherings, please share them! Restaurants, breweries, wineries, the options are endless… what places would you like to check out with likeminded food-focused folks?
There’s even more to the food scene in NYS/CT - so what else can we do to build our site and create interesting, diverse content? Long Island and Upstate folks, you are part of this board too and we’d love to have you join more. Maybe you can reach out to others in your area to come on over! I see a few on CH but we’d love to have you here. Let’s talk right now – what do you all think?
Sounds fantastic! Love the “Best of” threads idea. Also - posts of kid-friendly spots, and unique experiences (i.e. “pop up” restaurants or eating experiences) would be great too.
I’m excited to get this board growing! One way I thought we might be able to entice some new members is by perhaps getting a blurb about Hungry Onion and our NYS/CT community in some of the local papers. Lohud seems to run just about anything! In Yonkers, we also receive something called the Yonkers Express, which is just a four-page paper stuffed with circulars, that runs articles primarily about Yonkers and Mt. Vernon (and sometimes farther afield in Westchester County). I assume some of the other towns in Westchester (not to mention on Long Island, farther upstate and in CT) have similar publications?
Seeking out local bloggers to see if they might be willing to publicize a blurb about us could be helpful as well, especially if we can offer them the same service. Anyone have any favorite local bloggers to recommend?
Love the kid-friendly idea. Actually Maya Riviera is a perfect example of kid-friendly. I wonder if there’s a way to tag places like on the old Chowhound. Do you have any more ideas for best-of threads? We figured the obvious ones were the ones Gwenn mentioned-- bagels, burgers, pizza…
We have instituted a 1 new restaurant review per week policy so you are going to have to start dining out more. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. (Joke)
All sounds great. Will think more on other suggestions for bests but top of my head - Chinese take-out, Chinese eat-in, dim-sum, other asians, what about specific categories of sweets and baked goods - donuts, ice cream, etc. Glad to have found you all here. My food life and research has not been the same since Chowhound slipped (was ripped) away. Yelp certainly no substitute.
