START-UP CONTEST: Money For New Restaurant

The closing of an Oskaloosa restaurant has now turned into a nationwide contest.

“What it boils down to is Oskaloosa is part of a national restaurant talent search, chefs from all over the country have their eyes on you,” said Bryan Schultz from Iowa’s Best Bite Challenge. “They’re gonna learn to love the community.”

Schultz was speaking in Oskaloosa about the contest to find someone to run Dr. Salami’s, the longtime restaurant at the Oskaloosa golf course that closed a week ago.

Now there is a nationwide contest to find a chef who is also an entrepreneur to come up with an idea to make the restaurant a destination.

The prize is more than $150,000 in the form of operating capital and equipment and free rent for six months.

The board which runs the golf facility was looking for someone who knows the eatery business. Oskaloosa golf board member, Frank Hansen explained the reasoning, “It’s a challenge to manage a restaurant with a volunteer board, so we wanted someone to take it to the next level.”

This same type of challenge was done last year in Grinnell with the Prairie Canary. It is still open and doing well.

Entries for this year’s Best Bite Challenge are due May 6th.

Iowans can also apply to be a judge and do some taste testing.