Southern Living 2007 Readers' Choice Awards

You may not have seen anything yet about the Southern Living 2007 Readers' Choice Awards, but you should check it out for a couple of reasons.

First, there is a great prize that you could possibly win: a weekend trip for two to Kiawah Island, South Carolina ($4,700 value). The trip includes a stay at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort, golf, tennis, spa visit, a meal certificate, and a carriage tour of Charleston. Just enter the contest for a chance to win. You can click this link to go right to the entry page.

Second, there is a section at the bottom of the entry form for entrants to record their "Southern Favorites". One of those 'favorites' is the category, "Family Restaurants", and the recommendation says the following: "no chains; only those with one location, please".

This is an open invitation for me, you and many others to do their part in making sure that a meat and three restaurant is the winner. Makes sense to me, and I hope you agree. If you are a real champion of the "meat and three", I hope you will take part in this contest and vote for your favorite, email friends and family who also love them, and maybe post this entry on your blog or write your own similar post to help get the word out.

Sure, there are plenty of great single location restaurants here in the South, and many of them are not meat and threes. However, there are some mighty good meat and threes that could really be contenders. I (selfishly) am hoping that a meat-and-three restaurant will come out on top, which will help these great places to get even more publicity and recognition than they are already getting.

Some say they are a dying breed, but I am seeing and hearing about more and more of them almost every day. My goal is to really get the word out about these wonderful places. I want this genre of dining to find its way into more of the mainstream. It certainly would not hurt the effort, were a meat and three restaurant to achieve the top place in a contest such as this Southern Living one.

So, please don't leave this message without linking over to the contest and voting (click here to go right to the entry form). Also, brainstorm with me about other ways to get more meat and three lovers to vote for their favorite: comment on this post with your ideas; email me personally (see my profile) if you've got an idea you want to "chat about" privately; or create radio and tv promotions for all major markets in the U.S. (just kidding, I guess, unless your name is Donald Trump or Oprah). Of course, Oprah is from Nashville, you know, and Nashville is really the mecca of meat and threes. Hmmm...maybe I'm on to something there.

In any event, thank you for reading, and thanks for your interest in "meat and threes".

Don't forget to vote!

Phil Roberson (mn3guy)
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