If you talk to enough people about why they love living in Rhode Island, its food scene is bound to come up pretty quickly.
Eat Drink RI was created to help foster, connect and cheerlead this local culinary community, a 2010-helmed venture led by food photographer-turned-president David Dadekian. Katie Kleyla later joined the media, marketing and events company as director of development.
“[There wasn’t] a void, but a focus on local was really not there yet,” Dadekian said of the time shortly before EDRI’s beginnings. “Now, local’s the thing. It wasn’t as big as a draw to the media, and it certainly wasn’t online.”
One of EDRI’s earliest projects was its annual festival, a project that started small and has, after six yearly events, grown into a program large enough to warrant space in the Rhode Island Convention Center.
“The first one was a mess,” Dadekian said. “It was over a couple of days in small ballroom in the Biltmore. The second was when I took the reins completely, made it a bigger tasting and added a couple ancillary events around it.”
It was at this second event that many of EDRI’s most popular functions were born, such as the Dinner by Dames program (a team of women-only chefs and bartenders who create a fine dining experience, which Dadekian called “beyond great”) and its Truck Stop fundraiser (which now collects more than $160,000 for area food banks).
Nowadays, the Festival isn’t the only event EDRI boasts. Things like Land & Sea, a summer dinner series, has grown in popularity, and Kleyla uses her expertise to work with restaurants and local food-focused entrepreneurs grow in notoriety — in Rhode Island, and across the country.
EDRI boasts a variety of different packages for those looking for marketing and media training, but Kleyla said the ultimate goal of her work is the same no matter what. “[EDRI’s training is] a nice resource for people who want to focus on local, and avoid having to spend an exorbitant amount of money to work with a New York firm,” she said. “And I can meet face to face with them.”
The group’s most recent project is its development of the West Park Food Hall in Providence. For the uninitiated, food halls are “locally driven, fancy food courts,” Dadekian told me. EDRI is currently hosting a Kickstarter campaign for the project, which was initially initiated by a local developer who bought the building, wanted to use it for something food-related, and reached out to EDRI for help on the project.
“That’s important to us: community development, economic development."
So far, the group has raised $20,090 out of its all-or-nothing $119,000 goal — meaning, by the time the Kickstarter closes on November 15, if it hasn't reached its goal, the project won’t move forward and donors won't be charged. Funds from the campaign will go to legal fees, architect payments, lease agreements and other costs associated with developing the space. Contributors can expect prizes from local artisans and culinary stars, commensurate with the size of the donation.
The food hall is “the new business model,” Dadekian said, a chance for entrepreneurs to move forward with their business plans or inspire new ones.
It will also help participants continue to innovate by eschewing the culinary status quo and returning to the old ways of doing things — via preparation, farming, preservation, etc. “[We’re] not disrupting so much, but we are disrupting the Applebees and the Chilis and the Fridays of the world, and that’s innovation,” he said.
The food hall model also helps the Rhode Island ecosystem at large, Kleyla added. “This is an opportunity for many people who want to open a restaurant but aren’t ready to take the brick-and-mortar step of their own,” she said. “This is an intermediary step.”
It’s also looking to enliven the community, an important extension of EDRI's ethos (and tagline): "Food will help R.I. grow."
“By rehabbing a building, we’re putting some life into something that would otherwise be sitting empty,” Kleyla said. “That’s important to us: community development, economic development."
With that development also comes added flavor (pun intended). Dadekian stressed that quality of life, bolstered by places to get good food and drink, helps entice better workers, businesses and other entities to invest in Rhode Island.
“It’s a draw,” he said. “It’s what we do."
