Readers’ Choice Awards
BEST CATERING & BEST HAPPY HOUR
BEST LOCAL FESTIVAL
BEST RADIO STATION
Baked Alaska
Astoria-Warrenton Crab,
Seafood & Wine Festival
Coast Community Radio
Astoria, Oregon
Astoria, Oregon
KMUN 91.9 FM, KCPB 90.9, KTCB 98.5 FM
Runner-up: KRKZ Hits 94.3 FM Chinook/Astoria
Honorable Mention: KLMY Clammy 99.7 FM Long Beach
Runner-up: Festival of Dark Arts, Astoria
Honorable Mention: Astoria Regatta
Photo by Dwight Caswell
Voters picked Astoria restaurant Baked Alaska as offering the Best Happy Hour and Best
Catering in this year’s Readers’ Choice Awards.
For the second year in a
row, Baked Alaska has tri-
umphantly won the Readers’
Choice Award for Best Ca-
tering. Three or four times a
week, a Baked Alaska cater-
ing van delivers happy cu-
linary experiences to baby
showers, graduation parties,
weddings, anniversaries, me-
morial services, Astoria-War-
renton Chamber of Com-
merce After Hours events and
Liberty Theater events. The
Astoria restaurant is guided
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philosophy inspired by the
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and Jennifer Holen received
Entering its 34th year in
2016, the three-day Asto-
ria-Warrenton Crab, Seafood
and Wine Festival allows you
to indulge your love of sea-
food and try many varietals
from Northwest wineries at
the same time.
Put on by the Astoria-War-
renton Chamber of Commerce,
the festival includes live music
on two stages and about 200
vendor booths with more than
60 regional wineries and 100
arts and crafts sellers.
While you sip wine and
peruse vendors’ wares, enjoy
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Oregon Coast with seafood
festival favorites like the As-
toria Rotary Club’s Dungeness
crab dinners and the Astoria
Clown’s famous Clown Bread
(freshly baked French bread
smothered in the clown’s su-
per secret sauce, then topped
with your choice of either crab
or shrimp, and broiled to per-
fection).
This year’s festival is set
for April 22, 23 and 24.
A $3-per-person round-
trip shuttle ride will take you
to and from the event at the
Clatsop County Fairgrounds
(limited car parking is avail-
able and costs $15 per vehi-
cle).
More than 150 volunteers
help run everything from bus
unloading and trash duty to
the admissions table and wine
check, where you can drop off
bottles of wine you purchase
to pick up before you leave, in-
stead of lugging them around
all day. A range of local orga-
nizations volunteer to help run
the event and fundraise at the
same time; most of the dollars
spent during the festival get
funneled directly back into the
local community.
About 14,000 to 16,000
people attend the Crab & Wine
Fest each year, so it’s no sur-
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again earning the Readers’
Choice Award for Best Local
Festival (it owned the title
for three years from 2010 to
2013).
from a caterer during their
own wedding.
The Baked Alaska team
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en home the award for Best
Happy Hour. Baked Alaska’s
happy hour runs from 3 to 6
p.m. seven days a week with
$3 draft beers and well drinks.
Glasses of wine and small
plates on the regular menu
are $2 off, and there are also
discounts on other cocktails.
Items on the happy hour food
menu range from $3 to $8 and
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plate, cheesey bread, new
school Chex mix, a plate of
pickled items, and a rotating
pizza of the day. Look for spe-
cials and enjoy the menu
yourself in the restau-
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rant’s lounge, locat-
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Baked Alaska offers
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custom catering
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services;
find the
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restaurant’s
catering
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inquiry form online at
Club, A tion: Silver
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www.bakedak.com or
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Honor n Grille, Asto
call
503-325-7414 for more
Photo by Don Anderson
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information.
Volunteer Bev Bartlett of Astoria sells T-shirts and wine glasses at the festival.
Photo by Nancy McCarthy
Joanne Rideout, general manager of Coast Community Radio, gets ready to do a broadcast
at the Coast Community Radio studio in Astoria.
By NANCY McCARTHY
“The joke is, if you take any
20 people in Clatsop Coun-
The voices heard on most of ty and put them in a room, 10
Coast Community Radio’s pro- would have been programmers
grams are those of neighbors, IRU.081´5LGHRXWVDLG
friends and co-workers. “You’re
The station offers a radio
likely to know them, whether class for those interested in
they’re your neighbor or you learning more about the station
VHHWKHPLQWKHJURFHU\VWRUH´ and about programming.
said station manager Joanne
For everyone, it is a labor of
Rideout. “We call it ‘personal ORYH 7KH VWDWLRQ KDV RQO\ ¿YH
radio.’ We have a great connec- full-time and three part-time
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employees. More than 100 vol-
Whether it’s a conversation unteers help out, from alpha-
between a local farmer and a EHWL]LQJWKHPXVLFOLVWWR¿[LQJ
gardener about nutrition, or computers or working on the
programs featuring blues, chil- transmitting tower.
dren’s stories or Rideout’s popu-
The community has demon-
ODU³6KLS5HSRUW´WKHUH¶VVRPH- strated its appreciation by con-
thing for all ages on KMUN.
tributing money to KMUN
Add to that several National since the station’s inception
Public Radio programs, and the in 1983. Many listeners tell
station offers a well-rounded Rideout their radios are tuned
selection of news, commentary, only to Coast Community
music and whimsy.
Radio; many don’t have tele-
But no matter the program visions. For them, she said,
— from morning classical mu- the programs represent the
sic to evening jazz, the objective ³VRXQGWUDFNVRIRXUOLYHV´
remains the same, Rideout said:
For the station’s employ-
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ees and volunteers, the sta-
Since the programmers are WLRQ UHÀHFWV WKHLU FRPPXQLW\
volunteers who have lives out- “We sure appreciate people’s
side the station, the program- VXSSRUW´ VDLG 5LGHRXW ³:H
ming is always evolving. This ZRXOGQ¶WH[LVWZLWKRXWLW´
year, local author Matt Love
and Astoria area farmer Teresa
Tune in to Coast Community Radio on the
Retzlaff offer new programs.
radio, or listen online at coastradio.org
January 28, 2016 | coastweekend.com | 23