DINING
Best Caterer: The Drunken Onion Get & Go Kitchen Also third place Best Lunch, grab and go MaTT STenSlanD
Whether his customers are picking up blackened chicken with lemon chive aioli and grilled asparagus to heat up at home or hiring his catering services, Ben Stroock says The Drunken Onion Get & Go Kitchen doesn’t have a specialty. “We specialize in creating the perfect menu for each individual event,” he says. Apparently, it’s a formula that works, because the caterer picked up top honors for the second consecutive year. Stroock, who moved to Steamboat in 1993, cut his teeth in several Steamboat restaurants after graduating from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. After his restaurant, The Main Dish, closed, Stroock says he wanted to do something other than continue working the late nights required of a restaurant chef and spend more time with his family. He had been working on an idea for several years when he opened The Drunken Onion in June 2008, but Stroock says that idea quickly evolved. “My original concept was take-away catering, not full-service catering,” he says. “But people asked that I do it, so I kept with it.” Stroock’s services range from formal full-service catering to casual pickup and go. In addition to serving a variety of frozen and chilled items that change by season, he also offers daily soup and sandwich specials and a small sit-down area for lunch. Whatever service his customers choose, Stroock says they’ll get his true specialty, which is “professionalism and the highest What’ll it Be? Ben Stroock holding court at the counter. quality of food.”
Spring 2012 | STEAmbOAT living
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