Top New Jersey Restaurant Choices

• Café Panache—If you’re in Ramsey, you will love the clean style of cooking associated with this restaurant. As stated by Chef and owner Kevin Kohler, the goal is to provide guests with outstanding food, though he also wants people to feel good while dining. Without question, Kohler is a master in the kitchen, known for using fresh ingredients and creating innovative menu items like duck duo with organic red quinoa, shallots, and toasted pecans, and fresh peach puree. Renovated in 2009, this restaurant has a beautiful and inviting ambience.

• Cucharamama—This Hoboken restaurant is another excellent choice. Chef, scholar, traveler, and author Maricel Presilla creates food art that embraces South America culture. Born in Cuba, he has designed this and the sister restaurant, Zafra, to offer cuisine that is a modern-day interpretation of old Cuban dishes, including corn tamales, duck braised in Peruvian chichi de jora, and Ecuadorian shrimp ceviche in fresh tomatoes.

• The Frog & the Peach—You can have the limo service in NJ take you and your guest to this New Brunswick restaurant for an amazing meal. In addition to fabulous main dishes and sides created by Chef Bruce Lefebvre, including mushroom ricotta gnocchi with shaved porcini and gold bar squash, this restaurant is known for its superior desserts. Among the favorites are the strawberry-rhubarb crumble created by pastry Chef Brian Dymnioski.

• Mistral—This Princeton restaurant is said to be one of the most inventive yet affordable places to dine in the entire state of New Jersey. The kitchen is run by Chef de Cuisine Ben Nerenhausen, who loves a challenge. He is known for taking calculated risks, creating mouth-watering cuisine like lamb breast navarin with ricotta gnudi and roasted cabbage, chickpea fritters with romesco sauce, and Yorkshire pudding with bone marrow gravy.

• Ninety Acres, Peapack—Be prepared for a luxurious dinner at this restaurant. Since it’san upscale establishment, guests commonly use limousine services in New Jersey when dining at Ninety Acres, Peapack. Executive Chef David Felton fires on all cylinders, with a host of amazing dishes. Some of the more popular choices include a rustic meal consisting of fried chicken with silky mashed potatoes and gravy or an elegant meal of sautéed golden tilefish, wilted spinach, and lemony/salty marinated artichoke hearts.

 Arriving in Style

Sometimes, you need to be pampered. Whether you live in or have a trip planned to New Jersey, this is the perfect opportunity to experience some of the more innovative restaurants around town. To enjoy dining to the fullest, you definitely want to consider hiring a NJ limo service.

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10: Arrowhead Stadium – Kansas City, MO

Arrowhead Stadium is considered one of the most historic places in the United States for football, as well as epic tailgate parties. It also registers as the loudest, holding the Guinness World Record for noise.

9: CenturyLink Field – Seattle, WA

Home of the one-time champion Seattle Seahawks, the “12^th Man” is celebrated here more than anywhere else in the United States. With plenty of attractions surrounding the stadium including Pioneer Square, there’s no wonder why Boeing and other companies entertain often at this stadium.

8: Raymond James Stadium – Tampa Bay, FL

Where else can you watch a football game alongside the bungalows of an old-world seashore, or aboard an actual pirate ship? Raymond James Stadium embraces the namesake of the home team, offering plenty of excellent views and entertainment options.

7: Mile High Stadium – Denver, CO

Just miles outside of downtown and a short walk to Larimer Square, Mile High Stadium offers entertainment options both on the way to the stadium, as well as inside. In addition, fans (and accountants) love this stadium for the locally sourced and affordable concessions.

6: Heinz Field – Pittsburgh, PA

Let’s face it – you haven’t seen true American football until you’ve seen tens of thousands of people waiving “The Terrible Towel.” A classic venue for sports fans, the home of the six-time champions offers plenty of excitement, including a $7 stadium tour that covers the history of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

5: AT&T Stadium – Arlington, TX

It goes without saying why the newest NFL stadium in the United States is on this list. The home of the Dallas Cowboys offers great sight lines, the most high-definition screens in football, and the best sight-lines for over 100,000 spectators.

4: Lucas Oil Stadium – Indianapolis

Lucas Oil Stadium is the new centerpiece of downtown Indianapolis. The entertainment starts with kickoff and often ends in the restaurants and bars that surround the arena.

3: M&T Bank Stadium – Baltimore, MD

In addition to the accessibility and excitement of Baltimore’s Arena District, M&T Bank Stadium is a definite fan favorite. In addition, if you don’t like stadium food, don’t be shy to bring your own!

2: Soldier Field – Chicago, IL

One of the most historic locations for football, Soldier Field pays homage to tradition. Opened in 1924, a recent $500 million facelift gave new life to the stadium, including more concessions and entertainment options.

1: Lambeau Field – Green Bay, WI

It’s the house that Vince Lombardi built, and don’t think the locals have forgotten this fact. But for Lambeau, football wouldn’t be associated with brats, “cheeseheads,” or the Lambeau Leap.

When it’s time to entertain, there may be no better place than these ten best stadiums. When you pair a stadium trip with limousine service, you can focus on your clients – and leave the driving to us.

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Meeting Mngr Pro

This is a sharing app that allows you to connect to as many iPads as you need for a scheduled meeting. You can then share relevant documents, surveys, and give/receive feedback in real time from attendees. ($2.99)

myAgenda

A tool for more effective and focused meetings, this lets you organize and manage every meeting and synchronize them with your iPhone calendar. It allows the creation of meeting agendas and also the ability to select attendees from your address book and add relevant information. Once the agenda is complete, you can email it to all the necessary parties. ($0.99)

Super Planner

A tool for the detail of event planning, this provides a variety of planning instruments, including calculators for venue capacity, staffing, catering, staging, projection and dance floor. It offers useful tips in several areas as your event takes shape and also a capacity, food and beverage calculator, staffing calculator, plus calculators for audiovisual portions of your event and presentation and projection tips. ($9.99)

MindNode

This app is a way of capturing and ordering your thoughts. It’s a great output after a brainstorming session and will add useful features like colors and notes to the mindmap produced. ($9.99)

FlightTracker Pro

This is not just a tool for tracking your own flights but allows you to track multiple incoming flights, making some aspects of coordination arrivals significantly easier. ($9.99)

As a ground transportation company we can make one other aspect of event planning much easier: we can provide a scalable limousine service, tailored to your needs to make the problem of transporting all your VIPs, keynote speakers and attendees one thing that you don’t need to worry about. Royal Coachman is one of the Nation’s top 50 Limousine Companies; with over 150 vehicles available and can handle anything you are organizing. Call us today to make one aspect of event planning go like a dream.

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Start a Conversation

By speaking directly to a potential attendee on a personal level you can fire their interest and make them feel important. It will also give them a sense of obligation to attend the event as it’s something personal. You can call, text, or email but however you choose to communicate, it’s important that it’s a personal and personalized message. Ask them to look out for the formal invitation and tell them that you value their attendance.

Build Anticipation

You’ve got to focus on your target audience, who’re most likely weighing your invitation against other similar opportunities. So you’re going to have to build a sense of anticipation and stand out from the crowd. You can use a variety of media to do this but should keep it highly professional and social-network friendly. Remember, a recommendation from a friend will be worth much more to an individual than a suggestion from you.

Incentives

Ultimately, an attendee will come to your event because it offers them something – you’ve got to explain exactly what this incentive is. You’ve also got to explain what exactly the benefit will be; what they gain and why. This may sound like a tall order but if you break down your event into benefits it should be a really easy sell.

Drop Names

People will want to come and mix with and hear from the best, so make sure you let your attendees know who else will be there. On a more human level, people are social creatures that like the reassurance that others are following the same path as them. Therefore, dropping names will let them know that others have already made the decision to attend and thus validate their own decision.

Track and Chase

You can’t be reactive about your attendees. Make sure that RSVPs are tracked and that guests who’ve not yet replied receive even further incentives, using the methods described above. You can’t afford to sit still and let potential attendees get away, so go and get them with a well targeted follow up.

We can’t guarantee that all your potential attendees will be as excited about your event as you are, but hopefully these 5 short tips will allow you to get the attendance level you deserve. As a ground transportation company we can offer you one major guarantee: if you organize your event transportation with us we’ll support you with an immaculate level of service. How? With a fleet of immaculately maintained vehicles, highly trained staff and a company that is rated inside the top 50 limousine companies in the U.S., we have all the facilities required to deliver. Your event, no matter what size, is important to us and we’d love to be your ground transportation partner, either in our home areas of New York and New Jersey or through our affiliates, worldwide. Call our event support team to find out what immaculate service is like.

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When planning any sort of event, long or short, one of the most challenging aspects is finding a keynote speaker. This can at first seem overwhelming, particularly if you are new to event planning. But, just like event planning itself, if you break it down into a series of easy to achieve tasks it suddenly becomes achievable.

Make a List

Of the potentially thousands of keynote speakers to choose from, you need to make a list of all those that have the experience, knowledge and other requisite traits for your particular event. You should start with those you have had experience with, and then tap into friends and acquaintances for their own lists of suitable speakers. Lastly, use the internet to flesh out the list in your particular area of interest.

Thin Down the List

Next, you know need to discount all the non-runners from your list. Two great filters are availability and price range – both are objective and simple yes/no questions. You should speak to the person who organizes the speaker’s event for this information. You can now cross off all those speakers who are not available or who would cost too much.

Research

You now have a short-list of possibilities. You need to find out a bit more about each speaker to see who would be best for your particular needs. A great place to start is YouTube, here you will probably see for yourself what you’re going to be getting. It is also worth reading a few reviews and speaking to people who’ve heard them to get further information. If you’re really struggling, the booking agent should be able to send you some videos by email.

Garner a Second Opinion

A second opinion, preferably from the planning committee itself is definitely advisable before going ahead and booking. Even if it is just you left to make the final decision, a second opinion is a very sensible move to make sure that you’re not being too subjective in your judgment.

Have a Plan B

In real life unforeseen things happen all the time: It is true for speakers too.  If yours catches a terrible cough and can’t speak, your event must still go ahead, so you need a backup plan. You may be in luck and the speaker already has a stand in for just such occurrences, it is sensible to check this first. If not, simply go back to your list and book a second appropriate speaker that could be your keynote speaker and program them in a different slot. Then if the worst happens, bump them into the keynote slot, you’ve already got a plan.

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Here are a host of ideas for planning corporate events in the summer months:

Baseball

Baseball has over 200 years of history and is America’s favorite sporting pastime. For these reasons, it is a much loved corporate event theme. Ballparks have developed a series of great ideas to support your events; some of the best are:

• Bleacher parties
• Picnic parties
• Suites
• Field or upper deck party areas

The plus for you is that most venues are familiar with the challenges of corporate entertainment and tend to be flexible and supportive when you organize something with them.

Golf

Golf has an estimated 27 million devotees in the U.S., so a golf themed event is a natural corporate venue.  There are many great ways to incorporate golf into your program, including team tournaments, special courses and/or have course pro available to coach your team. New Jersey has some of the best golf courses in the country!

Thoroughbred Horse Racing

The excitement and showmanship to be found at any one of America’s thoroughbred and harness race tracks (like the Meadowlands Raceway here in New Jersey) are likely to be a great ingredient for a corporate event. The days are long enough to build meaningful relationships, with enough action to keep parties entertained but with fewer distractions than at a ball game. To make your day at the races a success you could consider the following options:

• Executive suites or the exclusive dining room
• Marquees tents
• Seats in the box

Live Music

Most cities have an “in the park” concert series with a great variety of music that should cater for all tastes. The New York/New Jersey area has some of the best concert venues (both indoor and outdoor) in the country! Most festivals offer great corporate entertaining facilities. You will find everything from private tents to top quality catering. The best thing about live music events is the ambiance; the combination of the warm summer evening air with wine and great music is sure to provide a suitable launch pad for any successful event.

Sailing and Cruises

A private yacht can be a very unique way of entertaining attendees. Awesome views, exclusivity and great catering can be a winning combination for a corporate event. You should take a bit of time to ensure that the crew and captain are appropriate for your needs. Some ideas of water themed events are:

• Alcoholic Beverages – simply add cocktails and live music
• Dining – softer music and a steadier pace
• A historical or architectural cruise – make sure you have a great guide

Speedways

NASCAR has a very loyal fan base and draws a great deal of media attention. This means an event at a motor speedway can improve brand recognition. Like many other sporting venues, the nation’s auto speedways have special event staff who are very familiar with corporate entertainment at all levels.  You should be able to find the best combination of facilities and catering options to deliver a great experience to attendees. A speedway could, on a non-race day, even be the solution for the location you are looking for to host a more traditional large corporate event. The combination of open space and an exciting venue would certainly make for a memorable and unique day.

Royal Coachman offers the most highly regarded ground transportation solutions in the New Jersey, New York Metropolitan area and world-wide. As one of the Top 50 Limousine Service Companies, we specialize in corporate events and all your business travel needs. Call us today to see how we can help.

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The report’s key findings concerning tradeshow attendees are:

• The vast majority, (94%) conduct some kind of pre-show planning, often by registering an interest or attending a related workshop.
• The majority, (70%) use the printed exhibition program to plan their time (if you need it, just let us know and you may find one in your Royal Coachman car).
• The most significant factor in taking the decision on whether to attend, or not, is based on personal recommendation. This can take form of direct, email or telephone conversations but is always based on a trusted advisors opinion of the value of the show.
• Less than a quarter, (24%) currently uses a Smartphone-based digital guide for planning purposes.
• Over half (53%), will simply ask the advice of the exhibitors for how to spend their time at the tradeshow.

The  unifying theme behind this report seemingly is the value of a trusted authority in planning and attendance at a tradeshow. This should not after all be a revelation as really modern communication and information-presentation methods have not altered the fact that, when we want advice; we go to someone we trust.

If you are planning to attend a tradeshow in the New York or New Jersey area, or indeed worldwide, Royal Coachman can help you to plan your transportation needs and support you while you’re there. Our professional limousine service is rated within the top 50 in the United States and caters to customers worldwide.

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The proposed amendment would have limited the participation to 25 Federal Employees at a single event. It was one of a hundred that were attached to the first budget passed by the U.S. Senate in just under 4 years.  The Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma proposed this amendment, along with 66 others.  It was rejected on voice vote last Thursday.

The amendments included some obscure clauses, many of which were not deemed worthy of serious consideration, such as: the prevention of regulation of food and beverage containers, to formally preventing the United Nations from forcing U.S. Citizens from registering privately owned guns.

The proposed amendment was deemed damaging by the American Society of Association Executives.  In a letter to members of Congress it asserted that: “the net result would be fewer opportunities to learn and exchange information with the private sector”.  They added further that: “The dialog that takes place at these meetings between government and the private sector is essential to the development of informed policymaking.”

Royal Coachman can help you to plan your ground transportation needs to your next event and support you while you’re there. Our professional limousine service is rated within the top 50 in the United States and caters to customers Worldwide.

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Royal Coachman Worldwide knows you and your group is looking forward to your stay in New York City. In order to help you decide on the all-important “where to go” to add to your groups or meeting excursions or even what facilities have the bandwidth to handle your large group, here’s a brief guide to the best:

Among the top ten newly renovated hotels friendly to group-stays with the facilities to host large events are the following:

1. Affinia, Manhattan
2. Conrad New York, Battery Park City – 463 suites
3. The Court, Murray Hill – 199 guest rooms and suites
4. Hyatt,  Union Square – 178 rooms
5. Jade Hotel Union Square art-deco-style – 113 rooms
6. New York Palace, intersection of 50th Street and Madison Avenue, Neo-Italian Renaissance – 805 rooms and 88 suites
7. Refinery Hotel, 197-room hotel
8. Roosevelt Hotel, Madison Avenue – 1,015 guestrooms and suites
9. Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel -1,781 rooms
10. The Tuscany, Murray Hill, 124 studios and lofts
11. Westin, New York Grand Central

Where to Eat

New York offers many fine dining experiences. It also allows you to do inexpensive take out and everything in between. One recommended restaurant is Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in the historic New York Times Building by Food Network host Guy Fieri.

Central Places: Convention Center & Facilities

New York City has many enviable convention centers and facilities to host special events. Royal Coachman Worldwide ensures you arrive safely at:

1. Madison Square Garden with its Lexus Madison Suite Level, Madison Club, Delta Sky360 Club and 1879 Club
2. Javits Center with the eco-friendly Javits Center North hall
3. Barclays Center, Brooklyn, plays host to a wide-ranging mixture of events e.g. boxing, concerts, basketball and hockey games
4. Alexandria Center, offers the Apella, both high-tech and environmentally friendly, for events and conferences
5. Armory on the Hudson, Washington Heights is home to the Arena with ample space for a variety of large-scale events

Out-And About City Cycling and More

New York has recently adopted a very bike-friendly attitude. The group, Bike and Roll NYC, has available approximately 2,000 bikes for both individual rentals and/or guided tours.  These tours include planned stops. The group arranges for you to visit a particular place of interest e.g. museum, gallery and make time for lunch. This is a great way to get your group out of the meeting room and revitalized between sessions!

If you and other members of your group prefer sailing, Manhattan by Sail provides you several unique opportunities. Why not get on board a tall ship, the Shearwater. This is a classic schooner, 80 years of age capable of accommodating 48.  Alternatively, you can opt for, the Clipper City. This topsail schooner can seat 150.

If this type of sailing is not your preference, look to World Yacht. Their fleet of four yachts is available for private charters and special events.

Whatever the decision – boat, bike or foot, keep in mind that Royal Coachman Worldwide can get you and your group to where you want to go in New York City and in the New York City/New Jersey Metro area.

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