Chocolate Decadence

At Home Designs – Framing it UP!

Shop Pullman First kicks off with Chocolate Decadence, November 8th, 4-7pm. Hundreds of shoppers will enjoy FREE chocolate samples and other holiday treats from over 30 participating businesses. Get your official Shop Pullman First – Holiday Shopping Guide on Nov. 8th, brought to you by the Pullman Chamber of Commerce and Moscow-Pullman Daily News,  which will include a map of all the delicious chocolate stops! While you eat and shop, make sure to check out the WSU Visual Merchandising Displays and enter to win a Home for the Holidays Prize Pack! The drawing will be held on December 1st at our annual Holiday Fest celebration in Pine Street Plaza!

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DOWNLOAD YOUR Official Chocolate Map!

2012 CHOCOLATE STOPS:
WSU Visual Merchandising Display spots
Merry Cellars – 1300 NE Henley Ct

Sugar Britches – 1275 N Grand Ave Snap Fitness – 745 N Grand Ave
Ric-O-Shay – 118 N Grand Ave
Farmers Insurance – 102 W Main St

Gladish Community and Cultural Center – 115 NW State St Prune Orchard – 107 S Grand Ave
Flirt – 107 S Grand Ave
Daily Grind – 230 E Main St
Neill’s Flowers & Gifts – 234 E Main St

Design Effects – 236 E Main St A Wrinkle in Time – 242 E Main St
At Home Designs – Framing it UP! – 250 E Main St
Sam Dial Jewelers – 255 E Main St
Lily Bee’s Consignment Shop – 400 E Main St
Thomas Hammer Coffee Roasters – 400 E Main St

Subway – 460 E Main St Glassphemy – 135 Kamiaken St
Old European – 455 S Grand Ave
Chipman & Taylor Chevrolet – 250 SE Bishop Blvd
Wild Ivy – 275 SE Bishop Blvd

Ace Hardware – 1690 S Grand Ave Great Clips – 690 SE Bishop Blvd
Sid’s Pharmacy – 825 SE Bishop Blvd
Crimson & Gray – 1096 SE Bishop Blvd
Sweet Mutiny – 1195 SE Bishop Blvd
Barnes & Noble “The Bookie” – WSU CUB, 1500 NE Terrell Mall

Visit our Pinterest boards for more!

 

 The Beautiful Palouse

 

Chamber Updates

You may have noticed that there hasn't been a post in a while......well, we've been quite busy here at the Pullman Chamber of Commerce!  And it only gets better and better all the time.
After our 4th of July Celebration, we cruised right into the National Lentil Festival.  By itself, the festival keeps us busy with planning, signing up vendors, organizing volunteers, taking care of permits, purchasing festival supplies, and hiring musicians.  Amberly, the Chamber's Events Coordinator, did a spectacular job of keeping us on track and making sure all the logistics were taken care of.  AND she gave birth to her second son right in the middle of it all!
National Lentil Festival also falls, by design, on the Week of Welcome to the students of Washington State University.  Students, parents, and staff all come back to welcome and begin the new school year.  Together, we praise the lentil and farmers who work so hard to put good food on all our tables.  And we have a good time doing it!
With WSU academia, there also comes football. This year has been an exciting one with the anticipation of a winning team with our new coach, Mike Leach, and the state of the art renovation of Martin Stadium.  To help celebrate the football team, we have increased our First Down Friday celebrations.  This tailgating event is being held in different locations throughout Pullman, and the events are all a bit different, but the theme is the same "GO COUGS!"  Visit Pullman Chamber's website or our facebook page to get specifics on each event, and plan on joining us for some fun before the game.
The Pullman Farmers Market continued each Wednesday through the close of the season on October 17th.  We have seen growth in attendance this season and the vendors are all talking about the return and some changes for the 2013 season.
Pullman has had several new businesses open recently: Red Bento, Birch & Barley, Miss Maggie's Antiques, Nomad's Hookah Lounge, Airway Hills Golf, Whiskey Barrel Cider Company and Washington Trust Bank, to name a few.  Dirt is moving on a few new buildings as well, and with each new business, we watch our community grow and prosper.
Along with our events that bring visitors into town, we have seen several seminars and workshops aimed at helping our businesses in their work.  Starting with the new entrepreneur, we had a SCORE workshop on "How to Start Your Own Business".  SCORE also offered "Sales and Marketing for Your Business" and we will continue this series through the spring.  Every second Tuesday of the month......check online for more workshops. Pullman Chamber Calendar of Events
The Pullman Chamber is partnering with the Moscow Chamber and the LEDC (Latah Economic Development Council) to bring a "Social Media Bootcamp" to Pullman in January.  This promises to be a great workshop with social media specialist Josh Wade of Nectar Media.
As we celebrate our 95th Annual Meeting and Awards Banquet this week, I stop to thank Pullman and surrounding communities for investing in our towns and county.  The Pullman Chamber has benefited greatly by our business owners, large and small, and hope that we can continue our work together through the decades.  We continue to strive to make Pullman a better place to live, work AND do business!
Ex Dir~Marie Dymkoski

Don't you just love a makeover????

We have had a makeover here at the Chamber Office! I am not sure how old the carpeting in this place was but it was definitely past its prime and headed right into disgusting. :(  So we packed up everything in the office with the help of Pratt Mayflower. (They were fabulous and if I was moving they would be my first call!) Why do we never throw anything out until have to start moving it around? Anyway once we had the office cleared out the carpet installers showed up and got right to work. Joanne Anderson at Design Effects did a great job helping us pick out carpet and paint. The carpet was installed over a Friday afternoon and Saturday so we came in Monday morning to new carpet and that lovely new carpet smell. We spend Monday morning painting walls and Monday afternoon Pratt Mayflower returned with all of our goodies. Why does it take so much longer to put things back together? We had it torn down in about a half day but putting it back together has taken soooooo much longer! We are finally about finished with the renovation (most of them anyway) and it is so wonderful. It looks great and it smells new and we are very happy. I would be doing makeovers all the time if they weren't so much work. :)  Come see our new look.
Debbie ~ Office Manager

New Wine Tasting Tour Video Out!

Click here to view this video

Be sure and check out the new Quad Cities Wine Tasting Tour Video. Many thanks to all the participants who helped make it happen! And stay tuned for one about our local breweries and new hard cider company.

Garden Tourism is Flourishing!

Garden tourism is a type of niche tourism involving visits or travel to botanical gardens and places which are significant in the history of gardening.  Europe has known this for years and has built an extensive million dollar industry around tours to various historical gardens. Surveys show 70% of these visitors are more interested in the gardens than in the homes.

I LOVE to visit gardens when I travel. There is a natural affinity for people who garden. Some think it is a pastime for retirees, but glance around any garden center and you will find young families and single adults gardening. And gardening is a voyeuristic sport - we like to look at other people's gardens!

On my recent vacation to California I jumped at the chance to visit a peony garden, and yes - I bought one to bring home, even though the climate here is different. Some things you just have to take a chance on. The flowers there were unusual and beautiful, the setting was well worth the drive. And new ideas for garden art were around every corner.

Here on the Palouse, garden tourism is alive and well. We are fortunate to have the beautiful Lawson Gardens right here in Pullman. The roses are a special treat in late June. A visit to U of I Arboretum in Moscow is great any time of the year. Bring your old bread crumbs to feed the ducks. If you were lucky enough this spring to stop by Living in The Garden, on Hwy 27 on the way to Palouse, you were sure to get some inspiration. Gorgeous flowers surrounded by relaxing music and a great gift shop. Again, a beautiful setting well worth the drive. Too bad their season is so short. They are only open April to July 1st.  Right now is when Sunshine Flowers & Crafts is just coming into its own. You can "stop and smell the flowers" and fill a bucket with fresh blooms for just $7. They are located off the Old Moscow Highway.

Community gardens offer a different kind of visit. Here you can get ideas for everything from flowers and herbs to vegetables and fruit trees. I was recently at a wedding in Seattle held in a community garden and was stunned by the fabulous bee hive they keep there -- it was really a bee palace! Koppel Farms here in Pullman offers the same chance to see what grows well in our climate. A great help when you are new to the area. Sunnyside Park also offers garden plots.

I am pleased to see plans in the future for WSU's Arboretum and Wildlife Conservation Center. This 100 acre landscape already contains a naturalized forest grove. And when completed it will be a wonderful addition to Pullman.

There is good reason to take garden tourism seriously. A recent study conducted by the National Garden Festival in Buffalo and Western New York shows:

• 19% visited other area attractions while there
• 83% ate at least one meal in a local restaurant
• 30% did some shopping during their visit
• Average expenditure during their visit was $67.82 per day (I spend that easily at every garden center I visit!)

So, even when you are traveling - you can still garden!

Vicki Leeper
Tourism Director

Pullman ArtWalk

This year's Pullman ArtWalk is going REGIONAL! 

An exciting lineup of local artists, family events and customer appreciation sales await you during the 2012 Pullman ArtWalk. Bringing communities together from Rosalia to Colfax, Palouse to Uniontown, art work from local artisans is on display at participating businesses during regular business hours. Use the maps enclosed in this program to explore the variety of locations, mediums and textures on display.

We are very pleased to bring to you this year's collaborative "regional" ArtWalk. Whitman County is ripe with unique artists and the Pullman ArtWalk is a chance for many of our smaller towns to participate in a collaborative event to showcase the towns and people, and to highlight and bring our communities together. 

Hundreds of visitors spent time browsing the shops, viewing the art and speaking with the artists last year all during one night of receptions. This year, by popular demand, we've extended the party to not only reach around Whitman County, but to indulge our whims with receptions and gatherings all week long. 

In keeping with the essence of the long-running history of Pullman's Crazy Days, businesses are eager to show their customer appreciation throughout the week with barbecues, store specials and great discounts. Dissmore's IGA will have its yearly customer appreciation Thursday evening and Pullman Building Supply will have hot dogs and goodies Saturday, July 21. The Pullman Farmers Market will be hosting Palouse Women Artists along with a wine tasting by Wawawai Canyon Winery on Wednesday and many other businesses will have specials and discounts throughout the week. 

The Second Annual Mayor's Award recipient is Richard "Dick" Domey. Domey has made many outstanding contributions to our community through and for the arts. In 2003, Dick was recognized as one of four "community treasures" for their work enhancing the Gladish Community and Cultural Center. He is also a strong advocate for the arts in education. The Mayor's Award is given as a recognition of arts in our community and sponsored by Mayor Glenn Johnson. Last year's recipient was ArtWalk creator and artist, Carrie Vielle. 

It has been a pleasure organizing the 2012 Pullman Regional ArtWalk for you. We thank you for your part in keeping the arts alive in our community and joining us in discovering the unity in our communities.

Ex Dir~Marie Dymkoski