Next Stop on the 20th Anniversary Tour: Asheville
When people think about Summit, they usually think about the creative print, web, and video pieces that we bring to the sports world day after day. Yes, we do stay very busy around our Charlotte office, but what people probably don't understand is how close we really are and how much we enjoy each other's company. Team chemistry is huge for us here at Summit, which makes our day-to-day a lot more bearable when we're hard at work. But, you know what's even better than hanging with your friends during the week while you're at work? Hanging with your friends outside of work on the weekend! Naturally, it can be pretty difficult to get the entire office together outside of work (believe it or not, we actually have lives outside of the office) but we decided that we wanted to find a weekend that all of us were available and do something fun. Since we are in the middle of our #Summit20thTour, it only made sense that we planned a road trip. Luckily, Asheville, NC is not too far from us, so we decided that a weekend trip was in order.
So, we packed our bags, loaded up a 15-passenger van, and hit the road. The drive there was pretty smooth as we got to catch up on some non-work-related topics and listen to some 'good” music (MMMBop was a fan favorite.) This trip was supposed to be fun and stress free, so naturally our first stop had to be a brewery. Asheville is practically Breweryville, USA, so we had a bunch of options - we picked New Belgium Brewing Company. New Belgium is one of the largest breweries in Asheville, and our president, Jeff, has a buddy that works there, so we knew that we had to check it out. His friend, Alex, hooked us up with a VIP tour led by one of their amazing employees, Trey. Trey told us about the history of New Belgium, informed us about their philosophy, and showed us how the beer was made. He led us through the brewery to places that only employees were allowed to go and we even had the opportunity to try a day-old beer (which was great, but now we're never going to have a fresher beer for the rest of our lives, which kind of means that it's all downhill from here.) After the tour, we got to hang out, try some other beers, and play some very competitive corn hole. Will and Daniel were the champions this time, but there will DEFINITELY be a rematch.
After we left the brewery, we checked into our hotel and went to dinner. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had some of the best food that I've ever tasted. It was a Spanish Tapas place, called Cúrate. As you probably know, tapas are supposed to be sharable, and we had the whole team with us, so I think that it's safe to say that we ordered the majority of the menu. After we ate so much food that we could barely move, we rolled out of there and decided to check out Downtown Asheville. We looked for a karaoke bar but unfortunately, we couldn't find one. Rumor has it that Merissa is the karaoke queen, so we'll be sure to let you know when we find one! After an incredible day, we ended our night on the rooftop of our hotel. We had a blast hopping around from bar to bar for a little and enjoying some time outside of work with our coworkers.
The only downfall to our Asheville trip was finding a place to eat breakfast on Sunday morning before we hit the road back to Charlotte. We heard about this awesome restaurant called Biscuit Head, so we knew that we had to try it out. Unfortunately, both of the locations that we tried had lines wrapped all around the building, so we went to the always consistent, Cracker Barrel instead. While we waited in our rocking chairs, we got to see Austin get some revenge from the corn hole game when he played Will in Checkers. After we ate, we loaded back up in our 'tour bus” and we headed back home.
As the year comes to an end, we got to look back and realize that 2017 has been a pretty amazing year for us. We've added three members to the team and continued to grow in our industry. It was great for us to take a break from the stress of work and really just enjoy our time with each other. It was a great weekend with some pretty great people (but I'm not biased at all.)