Galveston Island Wild Texas Shrimp Festival 2010

Online, October 5, 2010 (Newswire.com) - "Galveston Island Serves Up Gumbo With Gumption"

GALVESTON, TX - Galveston Island hosted the first annual Wild Texas Shrimp Festival on September 25, 2010 in the historic downtown Strand district. The festival which featured a 5K run/walk, amateur gumbo cook-off, professional gumbo cook-off and children's procession drew an estimated 10,000 in attendance.
"We were overwhelmed by the public support we received for this first time event. The attendance was more than twice our most ambitious estimate," said Mike Dean, president of Yaga's Entertainment, Inc. "We were so surprised that we sold out of gumbo in the first 45 minutes of the tasting." Dean went on to assure that in the years to come there would be no shortage of gumbo for the public.
In the professional division the public sampled and voted on shrimp gumbo from nine area restaurants; including Bernardo's at Hotel Galvez, M&M Restaurant and Bar, Yaga's Cafe, Float Pool & Patio Bar, Galveston College of Culinary Arts, The Spot, Shearn's at Moody Gardens, Benno's on the Beach and Olympia at Pier 21. The public vote went to Bernardo's at Hotel Galvez for the best gumbo on the Island and Yaga's Cafe was runner-up.
A brave panel of judges had the tough task of sampling more than 40 different dishes including, shrimp gumbo, chicken & sausage gumbo, shrimp bisque and open shrimp "chef's choice" from 32 amateur teams. The champion shrimp gumbo award went to the KC Drunken Chickens, whose recipe will be featured on the Yaga's Cafe menu for one year. Other category winners were; Chicken & Sausage-Chupacabra in the Crosshair, Shrimp Bisque-Carnes Funeral Home, Open Shrimp-KC Drunken Chickens. List of second place teams is available on www.galveston.com/shrimpfestival.
"It is events like these that provide our community with the positive economic impact that we need right now, " said Dean. " And with out the combined efforts of all of the downtown merchants and the shrimping industry we couldn't have held such a successful event."
Proceeds from the festival benefitted the Justin Hughes Memorial Fund at University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston County Food Bank, Island Little League, Trinity Episcopal School 8th grade class, and the East End Preschool. Sponsors of the event were Dienst Distributing, Galveston Shrimp Company, Galveston County Daily News, Southern Comfort, Galveston.com, Galveston Island Convention & Visitors Bureau and Texas Department of Agriculture.

The 2011 Galveston Island Wild Texas Shrimp Festival is set to kick off September 23-25,2011.

Media Contact:
Erin Dhonau, Yaga's Entertainment Inc., [email protected], 409-770-0999
Christine Hopkins, APR, Mitchell Historic Properties, [email protected], 409-457-1055