Restaurant Neighbor Award

Is your restaurant one of the 90 percent of restaurants doing charitable work in its community? Maybe your restaurant hosts an annual fundraiser to benefit disabled children. Or perhaps you coordinate a toy drive to make a needy child’s Christmas special or mentor young people in your restaurant. Tell us how your restaurant gives back and you could be eligible to win $5,000!

Each year, the National Restaurant Association and American Express awards $5,000 each to four restaurants – one small business, one mid-size/large business, one national chain and one Humanitarian of the year – through its Restaurant Neighbor Award, an awards program that recognizes outstanding community service efforts among our nation’s 945,000 restaurants.

Once applications are received, a panel of judges convened by the Oregon Restaurant Association will select winners from Oregon in each of the four categories. Those winners will be awarded the Governor’s Community Service Award, sponsored by SYSCO and presented at the Bite of Oregon. Those restaurants will then be submitted to the National Restaurant Association as Oregon’s winners so they can compete for the national award.

State winners submitted to NRA for the Restaurant Neighbor Award receive a plaque to display in their restaurant, are profiled in a booklet of community service case studies and are recognized at the National Restaurant Association’s Public Affairs Conference in Washington, DC. National winners receive the grand prize of $5,000 to help their favorite charity or community project and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC in September where will receive their award at the opening session of the Public Affairs Conference.

To apply for the award or to nominate a restaurateur who is actively involved in his or her community, please contact Karen Glass at (503) 682-4422 or kareng@ora.org, or download the official application. The deadline to apply for the award is June 20, 2008.