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Our team had the honor of partnering with Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia and Vernick Fish, one of their flagship restaurants, to bring a taste of the celebrated, modern oyster bar to the New Jersey Shore August 8-12, 2022.
James Beard Award-winning Chef Greg Vernick and his team hosted an experiential five-day culinary activation and a collaborative fundraising dinner. The event, Vernick Fish Down the Shore, was done in partnership with Cookie Till, owner of Steve & Cookie’s, a beloved New Jersey bayside restaurant in Margate, where Chef Vernick spent much time growing up.
“I’ve been visiting Margate since I was a child and much of the menu for Vernick Fish was inspired by my time spent in this corner of the world – it’s even where I got my first kitchen job,” Chef Vernick said. “It felt like a full-circle moment for me to be able to present what we do at the restaurant at Steve & Cookie’s, a restaurant I’ve long-admired.”
What began as a standard food truck pop-up concept quickly turned into a custom “seafood shack” structural build inspired by the iconic exterior design of Steve & Cookies.
The activation was casual, simple and intended to embed the brand into the local community in an authentic way for the week. And it certainly made an impact. More than 1,000 customers were served, and the menu sold out daily. No tickets were sold; it was simply a walk-up event.
Guests were able to purchase branded merchandise, inclusive of t-shirts, tote bags, hats and an iconic Jersey Shore beach tag.
To culminate the week, Cookie’s Reed’s Organic Farm hosted a 60-seat, intimate, sold-out, US $1,000-a-ticket benefit dinner “under the stars” with proceeds from both events going towards the farm.
The dinner was dripping in details– from custom, branded wooden herb boxes that became the centerpiece for the dinner that guests took home with them, to the ambiance that was created through a live musical performance, the entire night felt like a scene from a movie. “Preparing the perfect summer menu and seeing it come to life through the ingredients of our partners like Reed’s Organic Farm, Samuels & Sons Seafood and Giordano’s felt like the ultimate trifecta,” Chef Vernick added.
Since the pop-up was part of a brand awareness campaign, ROI was partially measured in the reach it had to new audiences in the nearby shore towns. The seaside restaurant is also very familiar and special to the Philadelphia community. It was also covered in national media outlets like Food & Wine and Town & Country.
Following the event, the hotel restaurant saw a 13% uptick in new guest reservations, many of whom joined them for the first time during the Down the Shore pop-up, attended the Farm to Table Benefit dinner, or heard about Vernick Fish through the added exposure it had from local editorial stories and influencers. During the campaign promotion, the hotel’s combined social media followers grew by 84% when compared to the previous quarter, and social engagement was up by 42%.
Nomination Title: Vernick Fish "Down the Shore"
