Chamber of Commerce thrilled to continue community events

Steinbach Chamber of Commerce supports businesses in Steinbach and area that are members of the Chamber. 

Tessa Masi, Executive Director for the Chamber, says they have different committees that support membership and business development, and a committee that works with bringing the business community together with the community as a whole. 

“We want to support them in every possible way that they can because they are the backbone of our economy and they're doing such amazing things.” 

They host various events throughout the year to highlight local businesses.  

One of their most recently introduced events is Taste of Steinbach. 

Masi says Steinbach has a wide variety of food and ethnic food, so the event is a good fit for the community. 

She says Travel Manitoba told them that bigger cities were doing events like Table for 1200.  

“We looked into it and thought, ‘we can do something like this’ and it was a huge success.” 

They had just under 400 people in attendance. 

The Chamber has plans to once again hold Taste of Steinbach in 2024. 

Masi says she loved being able to bring the community together and feature so many different types of local food. 

“It just really made the event showcase what Steinbach has to offer.” 

She notes they will be changing the location of Taste in Steinbach each year moving forward, and they will be setting a maximum number of spots. 

“So for people who are wanting tickets who don't sign up for tickets as soon as they become available, I'm not sure how long the tickets are going to stick around for. There were a lot of people who said ‘we didn't know about it’ or ‘we didn't realize what we missed, we're definitely in for next year.’” 

The Chamber also organizes the annual Pioneer Days Parade in Steinbach, which the City of Steinbach helps facilitate.

The parade is one of Steinbach’s biggest events each year. This year they had 94 entries. 

“For businesses who are Chamber members, they are able to enter and showcase their business in the parade for free,” she says. “That is one of the things that the Chamber is offering to say, ‘you're looking for a public stage in front of the entire community to show us what your business does and to have some fun doing it and throw candy at kids, this is that opportunity.’” 

Masi says it is a great chance for businesses to get creative and draw attention to themselves. 

“Some of them go all out, it's so much fun to see what businesses are doing year after year to make it a really special event.” 

In past years, the end of the parade route was a little more sparsely attended, but that’s no longer the case. 

Masi says it's now packed to the end. 

“When we turn the corner off Main Street, that’s an especially fun crowd because those are the guys that are dancing at the side. And some of the RCMP that work those posts, they're dancing to the music because Island Breeze is in the parade doing live music as well. So that's always been fun to look forward to.” 

The Chamber also hosts Burger Days each year, and Masi says it’s always a highlight of her year. 

“I feel like this year I ate more burgers than I ever have in a short amount of time, I wanted to try so many of them,” she says. “We pick up a bunch, and then we slice and dice with friends, so we get to try pieces of burgers without necessarily having to eat six burgers in one night.” 

Burger Days took off during the pandemic when there was nothing else to do, and the support has continued. 

“We had 17 restaurants participate again this year, as well as the Public Brewhouse. We had over 7,500 burgers sold within those eight days, with $127,000 of revenue on just burgers.” 

They also had a lot of local suppliers for the restaurants. 

“The restaurants are really going above and over to make something creative, but also to showcase local at the same time. And that's always been a big message coming from the Chamber, we need to support local, we need to buy local.” 

They are excitedly anticipating Burger Days happening again in 2024.  

“We got some fun comments from some of the restaurants. R-Bistro said they had made Argentinian flavors within their burger, and actually had an Argentinian customer come and try it and say that it tasted exactly like home. So that's pretty big praise,” she says. “And then Smitty's had mentioned that they had incredible feedback and sold double the amount of burgers that they did the year before.” 

 

With files from Carly Koop