An Intimate Dinner  Celebrating The Fourth Annual Artist In Industry Award

DATE/TIME/TICKETS

Wednesday November 6, 2019
Cocktails at 7pm
Dinner at 8pm
After Party 9pm

Join us for an intimate dinner celebrating Chocolate Factory supporters Sarah Obraitis and Hugue Dufour of M. Wells Steakhouse and Elliot Park of Shine Electronics as they jointly receive the Fourth Annual Artist in Industry Award.

Contribute to our Artist Commissioning fund in honor of Elliot, Sarah and Hugue to support the commision of a 2019/2020 season Artist.

The Artist in Industry Award was created in 2016 to recognize business professionals with strong connections to The Chocolate Factory who have demonstrated creativity and artistry in their careers, thus impacting their fields as a whole.

Hugue Dufour was born on a dairy farm in Alma, Lac St. Jean, Québec.  His connection to ruminants deepened when he learned how to cook beef.  Leaving his small town for Montréal, he quickly started and ended a tour in culinary school and began working in kitchens throughout the province, including the internationally famed Toqué and Au Pied de Cochon.  As a partner in Au Pied de Cochon, Hugue was the subject of the documentary Durs à Cuire, a tv star on the country’s only bi-lingual cooking show The Wild Chef and heavily featured and wrote the recipes for the cookbook The Album : A Cookbook from the Celebrated Restaurant, a piece The New York Times dubbed a “publishing phenomenon.”

Sarah Obraitis studied farming, agricultural economics and international development at the University of Vermont and helped grow the sustainable agriculture department at Rainforest Alliance, an international conservation group working with multinational corporations and small producers to achieve social, economic and environmental goals as part of their business practices and marketability. She launched the wholesale division of the pioneering meat purveyor Heritage Foods USA, a for-profit extension of Slow Food USA, and its communications offshoot Heritage Radio Network and hosted one of its first shows entitled “Eat to the Beat”. Prior to that she traveled with chocolate professionals to source rare Arriba cacao. Sarah helped produce the world’s largest tag sale in Central Park raising resources for the Fund for Public Schools. She’s worked on small family-owned dairies in Peru and rose plantations in Ecuador and launched the UN office of the World Citizen Foundation.  Sarah is on course to become a NYC Master Composter this year.

Dufour and Obraitis were paired up at a film and food festival in Florida many years ago. In 2010 they opened M. Wells in Long Island City, in a dilapidated but charming 1954 diner which they cleaned up and turned into a place The New York Times chose as worth flying to in 2011.  When the diner closed M. Wells Dinette set up inside the contemporary art museum MoMA PS1. Hugue and Sarah now exclusively run M. Wells Steakhouse in the same neighborhood. M. Wells Steakhouse is not easy to define. Chef Hugue Dufour happens to be from Québec and he happened to be trained in France and he happens to love Queens.  All this combined gives the food its fun, flavorful and unconscious flare.  As an anthem to the classic American restaurant, M. Wells Steakhouse brings delight to both diehard traditionalists and those who roll left-of-center. In Hugue’s free time he offers entertaining and memorable cooking classes and became the subject of another documentary called Le Steakhouse.

Elliot Park is the Chief Executive Officer of Shine Electronics; a New York City based family-owned global mobile electronics distributor that has been in business since 1974. Elliot is an award winning, nationally recognized thought leader on mobile technology resale and export distribution. In 2014, as the new CEO, he realigned the business model towards purchasing new and used mobile phones and accessories from the major U.S. telecom carriers. Since then, Shine is now one of the fastest growing companies that services the reverse logistics industry in telecommunications. Elliot is a nationally recognized business and community leader where he has been an advocate for Asian American businesses at the local, national and international levels. In 2015, he was tapped for his business leadership expertise and participated in international trade policy roundtables on behalf of Asian American businesses to the White House National Economic Council. He was also an official delegate of President Obama’s Official Trade Delegation to the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Small Medium Enterprise CEO Summit in Manila, Philippines. Because of his leadership, advocacy and Shine’s commitment to environmental stewardship, Mr. Park was awarded the 2015 Minority Business Exporter of the Year by the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington D.C. With the success of Shine Electronics over the past several years, Elliot passionately gives back to the community via philanthropic giving and by serving on various leadership boards in the greater NYC region to include the Long Island City Partnership, Queens Community Board 2, and the Queens Museum. Elliot is actively involved with not-for-profit organizations that are focused on education, social services, civic engagements and the environment. The Korean American Family Service Center awarded Elliot with their 2018 Vison in Action Award for his long standing support for Korean American family immigrants. In 2015, Elliot was a recipient of the Top 50 Outstanding Asian Americans in Business Award by the Asian American Business Development Center. As an active contributor to the Asian Pacific American Institute of Congressional Studies, he has sponsored summer internships for students with a passion for politics and public policy. Elliot holds a BA in Telecommunications Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Food by Bartleby & Sage. Bartleby & Sage opened its first artisan food shop in LIC back in 1997. Ever since they have been serving handmade farm-to-table dishes full of authentic flavors at their restaurants and now as caterers throughout the tri-state area.

Wine provided by Vine Wine. Finding the best wine for the best people since 2015, Vine Wine has been making sure you drink the best wine from the best people

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