Tacoma Restaurants Are Bringing the Heat—and Students Built the Stage

Some of Tacoma’s best-known restaurants are preparing to battle over bowls of chili this weekend. But the most interesting competition may be happening outside the kitchen.

The inaugural South Sound Showdown will bring chili, cornbread, music and a beer garden to downtown Tacoma’s UrbanWork Rhodes Center from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, September 19.

Guests will sample the entries, vote for their favorites and help decide which competitors take home the event’s People’s Choice honors. The current official lineup includes Katsu Burger, Lobster Shop, Macaluso’s Italian Restaurant, STINK Cheese & Meat, Sugar Bones Tacos, Tibbitts @ Fern Hill, Urban Elk Restaurant and Bar, and En Rama Kitchen & Bar.

The cornbread side of the competition is considerably less predictable.

Eleven participating businesses are listed, ranging from Tibbitts and Purpose Boutique to a home-inspection company, a mortgage firm, an architecture-and-document business and several construction and commercial-real-estate companies. Exactly what kind of cornbread emerges from that collection may be reason enough to attend.

A live DJ, silent auction and beer garden will round out the afternoon. College football will also be shown on screens around the venue.

The food, however, is only the most visible result of the work behind the event.

Six high school and college students spent eight weeks designing, marketing and producing the Showdown through the first Tacoma Rising Summer Business Accelerator. The cohort included Wendy Wells of Tacoma Community College; Aidan Vu of Stadium High School; Ira Erickson of Bellarmine Preparatory School; Angel Castro and Javion Pleasant of Lincoln High School; and Eyosiyas Teshome of Mount Tahoma High School. Tacoma Rising introduced the students before their August capstone presentation.

This was not a classroom simulation.

Students learned about branding, outreach, customer-relationship management, budgeting, sponsorship sales, logistics and event production—and immediately applied each lesson to something the Showdown needed.

They contacted restaurants, pursued sponsors, tracked prospects, helped develop the marketing campaign and worked through the practical details of moving hundreds of people past competing pots of chili. After presenting their plans to local business leaders in August, the students entered a three-week final push to secure participants, sell tickets and prepare to operate the event themselves.

“The South Sound Showdown is the business,” Tacoma Rising explains on its accelerator page. “The Accelerator is the team that builds it.”

Proceeds will fund awards and scholarships for students participating in Tacoma Rising’s mentorship programs, help pay for the event and support the organization’s continuing small-business and student programming.

General admission currently costs $31.51, including fees and sales tax, and includes the chili and cornbread tastings and voting. A $66.90 beer-garden package adds access to the beer garden and two drink tickets. VIP admission is $90.48 and includes early entry, early voting, double voting power, a wristband and gift bag. Tickets are available through the event’s official page.

Tacoma Rising lists the public event from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eventbrite’s checkout header shows a 10 a.m. start, apparently reflecting the early admission included with VIP tickets.

The winning chili will earn a trophy. The six students behind the afternoon will leave with something harder to display—but potentially more valuable: proof that they can take an idea, sell it to a community and turn it into something real.