Taste of Newport fills up

On the second day of the first Taste of Newport, everything was going well when Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce President Richard Luehrs noticed a toilet “overflow” trickling down the gently sloped parking lot on Newport Center Drive.

“On Saturday evening when we were awash in business, all of a sudden we had an overflow from those bathrooms, and it started going down toward the rest, so we had an absolute emergency to clean up and stop the leak,” Luehrs said about the 1989 event. “It was an all-hands-on-deck type of thing to make sure we don’t spoil the event, and I’m using the word spoil literally here.”

Thankfully, Luehrs said, the frantic group stopped the leak before they were awash in something other than business.

So went the first Saturday evening of The Taste of Newport, which organizers expect this year to attract 60,000 people to Newport Center Drive.

“The taste,” as founder Bill Hamilton called it, has not always been such a well-attended venture, with about 18,000 people at the event’s inaugural year.

In the late 1980s, Bill Hamilton and Luehrs needed an event that would bring in revenue for the Chamber of Commerce and to boost Newport Beach’s restaurant industry.

With cities like Irvine quickly growing, Luerhs said, the chamber realized that outside competition might impinge on Newport’s fine dining market, which previously had been almost unrivaled.

“We were brainstorming ideas to bring more business to Newport and to help the chamber grow because at the time it was stalled,” Hamilton said. “My suggestion was to have a Seafest, a weeklong event around the harbor with various nautical events.”

The Taste of Newport was one such event. In all, Seafest featured 19 events, including a tour of a huge Navy ship. In the years following 1989, the events of Seafest slowly faded away — but not the Taste of Newport.

The first year, “The Taste [of Newport] was mildly successful, but it didn’t bring in a lot of money for the chamber, and that was what we had tried to do. So the next year, we did much better — better entertainment, better selection of restaurants, better organization,” Hamilton said.

He said that an admission charge was not introduced until later, and he said that, although tickets were $1 apiece even then, plates of food were considerably cheaper.

In 1989 the event brought in jazz musician Styx Hooper to play, and each year saw the entertainment “ramped up,” Luehrs said.

Hamilton said he knew the Taste of Newport had become a real success when an outside events company and entertainment booking company were needed to ensure the smooth operation of the event.

Five Crowns general manager Chris Szechenyi attested to the growth of the event and its influence on the dining community.

“Overall, it’s a really fun community event and it continues to remind people to come see Newport Beach restaurants. I think the Taste of Newport serves to remind people that we’re here,” Szechenyi said.

Now that he’s no longer involved with the Taste of Newport, Hamilton is able to look back on the event that he worked so hard to create and maintain. He sees continuity between the event’s earlier years and today.

“There were lots and lots of volunteers then and now. The chamber benefits from the admission fee and a portion of what the restaurants sell,” Hamilton said.

The popular culinary event, which is scheduled to run Sept. 15 through 17, will feature samples of specialty dishes as well as old-time favorites from 35 restaurants and wine from more than 15 wineries. For more information, visit www.newportbeach.com.