Winning a restaurant is fun
With a limerick it can be done
If you give it a try
And catch the owner's eye
You could be chosen as the one
A simple limerick and a $300 entry fee could win you Benjamin's International Café in Gibsons. Owner Nicole Josh wanted to put her 80-seat restaurant up for sale for about $250,000 but decided to do something different to grab the attention of the public.
"If you put it up for sale, three people know about it - if they're looking. But if you do a contest for something silly, the whole world knows about it," Josh said.
She was talking about the possible sale of the restaurant with her business partner when they came up with the idea to create a contest.
At first Josh said she and her partner were thinking of selling tickets lottery-style for the restaurant, hoping to gain enough money from the sale of tickets to cover the $250,000 asking price for the restaurant.
"I figured that wouldn't fly with the gaming commission, so I thought maybe there's some other way. I said, 'Hey, how about a poem or something?' and then we started talking. And you know sometimes poems can go on forever and ever, and I thought, 'Well, a limerick's five lines and they're always quirky and fun.' So I said, 'Let me work on it.' I went and wrote up something, and we hemmed and hawed over it and kind of edited it a little bit more and went, 'Yeah, this just might work,'" Josh said.
She posted the idea on her restaurant Facebook page, and soon the media took notice. The Province newspaper, CBC Radio and CBC TV have all done stories on Josh's limerick lottery idea this past week.
That media attention has brought many inquiries about the unique lottery from near and far.
"I was on CBC Radio the other day and I had people Facebooking me from Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan saying they heard it," Josh said, noting she is pleased with the response so far.
The rules of the limerick lottery are simple. Contestants must come up with a limerick about food that is clean and in reasonably good taste. The limerick can then be submitted with a $300 entry fee to Benjamin's Café, Unit 3, 900 Gibsons Way, Gibsons B.C. V0N 1V0.
A panel of three judges will choose the winner, who will then take over the restaurant and be responsible to pay all hydro, liquor licence, transfer and lawyers' fees.
The second place winner will receive $40,000, and the third place winner will get $10,000.
Only 1,000 entries will be accepted, and the money will be put in trust until the contest closes on Nov. 30, 2011.
Josh said if she doesn't get 1,000 entries, all the money will be returned to those who entered.
The judges for the limerick contest are Gibsons Mayor Barry Janyk, actor Adrien Dorval and retired teacher and poet David Walmsley.
You can find out more about the contest on Benjamin's International Café Facebook page or by calling the restaurant at 604-886-1646.
