November 2014 First Friday Recap

What an amazing night and so much for which to be thankful! We love that we are able to host First Friday as a way to bring together new busi­nesses, create a sense of  a neigh­bor­hood in Albany Square, to say thank you to our clients, to make new friends and to give back to the community.

We wel­comed to the neigh­bor­hood, Squeeze Juice Works and were hon­ored that they used our venue to unveil the new taste of the hol­iday, Santa’s Little Helper. A fan­tastic blend of cold pressed pome­granate and tan­gerine, all of the vit­amin C and antiox­i­dants that you will need to stay ener­gized and healthy through the hol­i­days! We loved this juice so much that we made it our sig­na­ture cock­tail for the night (it pairs very nicely with vodka or cham­pagne for some healthy cheer) and for the first time, we quickly ran out! It was a HUGE hit and I don’t think we have ever seen our celebrity bar­tender, Nick Peterson so busy! Don’t worry, the guests were not left out in the cold, the ladies from Squeeze, Kelly and Can­dace, also served up sam­ples of their Daily Mean Greens, Galaxie 500 and One Night in Bangkok for everyone to try. Nick even mixed some of these juice blends in some cock­tails. Add a little vodka to One Night in Bangkok and you have your­self a zippy and healthy bloody mary type drink! Cold pressed in small batches to main­tain the nutri­tional integrity of juicing, Squeeze has amazing juice and nut milk fla­vors. Served up in glass bot­tles (no BPA allowed here!) that you can return for recy­cling and they also have a fre­quent rewards card to earn free juice! Want a little some­thing to nosh on for lunch? Always organic, Squeeze has deli­cious raw and vegan lunch options. Way more than your typ­ical juice bar, Squeeze is a way of life. Located at 226 South Boule­vard, the corner of Platt and Boule­vard, stop by and see what fan­tas­ti­cally fresh fare they have to offer. Lunch menu and juice options may vary with the sea­sons. Thank you, Squeeze! It’s great to have you in the neigh­bor­hood! And thank you, Nick for once again doing a fab­u­lous job man­ning the bar.

On to the food! It was a night of health and organics and we were lucky to have our dear friend, Vera Farmen, owner of Fruit of the Vine Organics to pro­vide the delightful appe­tizers for our guests. Vera shared with us the good­ness avail­able from the weeks delivery bas­kets, a deca­dent porta­bello and shi­take mush­room bruschetta, a fan­tastic roasted pepper and gor­gonzola bruschetta, along with deli­cious moz­zarella and basil stuffed cherry toma­toes! Light, filling and fab­u­lous! Although, I think the hit of the night and the one thing that we wit­nessed being snuck out of the store, was Vera’s sin­fully deli­cious choco­late chip cookies. Warm, ooey, gooey, choco­latey good­ness that made you stomp your feet with plea­sure! In addi­tion to her weekly organic fruit and veggie bas­kets, make sure check out Vera’s cookies as a cor­po­rate office gift option! Place your order today and have all of your Hol­iday gifts taken care of!

We did some­thing a little dif­ferent this time with our spot­light charity focus, we joined forces with Feeding America Tampa Bay, Met­ro­pol­itan Min­istries, Zach Bonner and the Little Red Wagon Foun­da­tion to break the Guin­ness Book of World Records for the largest food drive in a 24 hour period. The event started at noon on Friday and ran until noon on Sat­urday, of course our dead­line was the end of the First Friday cel­e­bra­tion. Our clients were encour­aged to bring in 10 cans for dona­tion in exchange for a 25% coupon to be used at Clayton Gray Home. We knew how fab­u­lous you all were and now we can share with the world, not only did we over­flow our col­lec­tion box, but with the mon­e­tary dona­tions we were able to fill a shop­ping cart with goods and donated a total of 267 pounds of food! We were the largest indi­vidual dona­tion as of 11:07 a.m. on Sat­urday, not sure if we held on to the title, but we are for­ever grateful for the gen­erosity of everyone who helped us, help the hungry and needy in the Tampa Bay area. And yes, Zach accom­plished his goal and set a new World’s Record! If you want to know more about how you can help out this hol­iday season, check out Feeding America Tampa Bay for more infor­ma­tion on food drives, their upcoming Empty Bowls event on November 20th, or make a mon­e­tary dona­tion. Just a $1 dona­tion will pro­vide 7 meals to those in need in the Tampa Bay area and 1o sur­rounding counties.

Save the date for our next First Friday Event, December 5th. More fab­u­lous food, drinks and charity fundraising to get your hol­iday season started off just right! Until next month, Cheers!