LET THE MAKI MADNESS BEGIN

There is only one word for an eating contest that involves sushi – madness. In this case two words: Maki Madness. Coinciding with NCAA March Madness, RA Sushi hosted their third sushi eating contest for the Chicagoland community on Sunday March 20th. All three RA Sushi Chicagoland locations (Gold Coast, Glenview, and Lombard) welcomed the Windy City’s finest to come stuff their faces for a chance to win free sushi for a year.

Working at Zapwater we are no stranger to events. Zapwater’s RA Sushi team (Annie, Stephanie, and I) ventured out to facilitate the competition. Much like the college basketball pros, contestants battled it using a bracket system through first, second and third rounds until the final Championship Sushi Showdown. The “final four” had three minutes to finish as many Tootsy Maki rolls as possible. This was not always a pretty sight! Patrons who purchased RA’ signature Tootsy Maki roll had a portion of the proceeds donated to the Illinois chapter of the March of Dimes. Despite some poor weather we had a strong turnout at all three locations with the winners often eating over 100 pieces of sushi total!

The cherry on top of any publicist’s day is having media present and lucky for us we not only had several Chicago Now bloggers attend but a cameraman from ABC Channel 7. Imagine our delight when the winner of the Gold Coast event turned out to be the boyfriend of Melissa on WTMX’s the Eric and Kathy morning show! The PR gods were smiling down on us 

We couldn’t have asked for a better event and look forward to the Madness returning in 2012!

Michael Corrigan Publicist