NYC THROUGH MY EYES

5 Questions with Rosemary Jorda, the Marketing and Events Director at the Village Voice

I recently had a chance to ask Rosemary Jorda, the Marketing and Events Director at the Village Voice, five questions about tomorrow’s Choice Eats event. Check out our conversation below:

With an event that constantly sells out like Choice Eats, it makes sense to move it to a larger space to grow the event and cater to the demand, but how did the team decide to go with Basketball City?

RJ: Choice Eats has grown larger every year! With over 80 participants locked in for this year's event, this will be our largest Choice Eats to date. Each year we see such a rise in the number of amazingly delicious restaurants in New York, that this event needed to grow to meet that demand. It is an amazing time to be a food fanatic in New York - from the amazing New York BBQ of Morgan's Brooklyn Barbecue to the culinary-style of Dirt Candy's dishes and more, we wanted to showcase as much as we could at Choice Eats for our guests and needed room to grow! We also wanted to offer our attendees more than sampling, so growing into the space enabled us to build out a Food Demo area featuring talks from some of the food world's experts, like Elly Truesdell the Local Forager of Whole Foods Market who will be showing how an amazing pizza from Roberta's can now be purchased at home.

How does the Village Voice choose what restaurants to feature at Choice Eats?

RJ: Choice Eats is a great representation of the best food New York has to offer! Our food critics scour the culinary landscape in search of the best bites from all the NYC boroughs. They work hard to cultivate a good mix of cuisines, nations and dishes to excite our event goer's palates. From returning Choice Eats Restaurants like The Meatball Shop to new additions to the line up like Jacob's Pickles and Bunker, there is something new for everyone to try and our food critics work diligently to make certain the event is sure to please. To see a full line up and a sneak peek at the event map, visit www.villagevoice.com/choiceeats

What about the entertainment?

RJ: In addition to the newly added Food Demos, Choice Eats like to treat our guests to DJ sets from some of the city's most popular musicians. In the past, Andy Rouke and The Rapture have graced our Choice Eats DJ booth proving amazing ambiance and sounds for our attendees to chow down to. This year Brooklyn-rockers DIIV will be curating their musical masterpiece for all attendees to enjoy.

Choice Eats is large, but the Village Voice has also expanded to other events like Holiday Spirits. Is the span of events that the Village Voice throws expected to expand? If so, what can we expect on the horizon?

RJ: Each year The Village Voice event team looks for ways to engage and entertain our audiences and readers. In addition to Choice Eats, current we are hard at work planning our our next food event, Choice Streets Food Truck Tasting - May 7th on Pier 86 of The Intrepid. We then dive into different areas of our editorial expertise with our theater awards show - The Village Voice Obie Awards, our music all day free festival - The 4Knots Music Festival, our beer sampling event - Brooklyn Pour and the newly added Holiday Spirits drink sampling. Who knows what will come next, but we are always open to adding and developing new ideas and events for our readers.

Are there are any surprises for this year’s Choice Eats that you’re willing to share?

RJ: We can't keep a secret here and love to share all our event news on Choice Eats! From the Food Demos to the DJ sets by DIIV, Choice Eats will be full of surprises! Our guests can also take a break from chowing down and visit our first ever social media lounge, Hashtag Hangout by Whole Foods Market, our red carpet welcome by New York Health and Racquet Club, our new state of the art Photobooth Experience by Disney's Newsies on Broadway and much more!

You can still get tickets to tomorrow’s event from Gilt City for 25% off HERE.

Follow @stephaniecarino

comments: 0