Prairie Public’s major gifts manager, Rick Gion, has turned his love of food into a passion project: running the Fargo-Moorhead Eats group on Facebook.
The community-driven group is a popular spot for more than 27,000 area foodies to share restaurant news, reviews, and recommendations. The group has an impact, too — local businesses know that positive reactions in the group will often result in a boost in reputation or sales.
“TJ at ThaiKota, who’s a friend … he said that’s impacted his restaurant quite a bit. When Thai Orchid was struggling over in Moorhead, I had heard that this page saved them. And I was like, holy cow, that’s very humbling.”
Gion says part of the reason he started the group in 2021 was to try to support locally owned restaurants who may have been struggling during the COVID pandemic. But now, he says the local culinary scene is robust. “We’re growing, there’s places opening it seems like every week. People were worrying about places closing there for a while, but I don’t think that’s really an issue.”
Listen to the full conversation above.
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This interview is from Episode 2 of The Great American Folk Show podcast, premiering Saturday, November 11.
Restaurants mentioned in the interview:
- ThaiKota
- Thai Orchid
- Drekker
- Sons of Norway
- Taqueria Chavez (Pelican Rapids)
