By: centraljersey.com
Hillsborough High School senior Michael Zhang has made the most of his internship with the Hillsborough Business Advocate’s Office, and up-and-coming restaurants in the area should take notice.
Upon seeing the increasingly high turnover rate for local restaurants during his time with the REACH Senior Intern program, Michael decided to put together the Hillsborough Sampler. The Sampler, which will be held from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Feb. 11 in the Hillsborough High School commons, will showcase delicacies from about 20 local eateries that have opened within the past two years, he said.
Michael said he decided to focus more on the newer businesses in town because the first year or so is considered crucial to a restaurant’s success. If a business doesn’t make a name for itself within the first year it could be curtains for the establishment.
"The only businesses I asked were businesses that could use the advertising – the recent businesses," he said. "I didn’t go to the established businesses, like Applebee’s or the ones that are really busy. It’s not to help me, I’m not looking for money and (the business advocate is) not making any money off this. It really is for the benefit of the restaurants themselves that we’re having this event at all."
However, even some veteran establishments have had their struggles recently.
"We’ve got five vacancies at the moment," said Gene Strupinsky, Hillsborough’s business advocate and Michael’s supervisor for the internship, "so percentage-wise it’s probably about 20 percent (vacant) at the moment. This is higher than we typically have, and it includes some of the more up-scale restaurants like Charlie Brown’s, Famous Dave’s and Bellissimo.
"There is some concern and we’re trying to do what we can to promote the local businesses with the residents in town. Hopefully it will expose their foods to more people who haven’t tried it before.
"New restaurants, the first year is often very critical for them, but of the restaurants that I mentioned that have gone under only Bellissimo was new. Famous Dave’s and Charlie Brown’s have been here a long time, but in both of those cases the problem wasn’t Hillsborough it was bankruptcy … and a reflection of the economy."
The Hillsborough Sampler did not come to fruition overnight. Michael has been working hard on his idea since December to put it together and, according to Mr. Strupinsky, "literally did all of the work" himself.
"I first spoke with the Hillsborough (school) business administrator – Aiman Mahmoud," Michael said. "He was very helpful in helping me set up all the legal stuff. I went to the building supervisor and made sure I had insurance sent over, and drawings for the Fire Department.
"Also, I met with the principal of the school to make sure there weren’t any scheduling conflicts. Then I tried to advertise it to the businesses themselves to see who would interested, because it would be $30 for them. So essentially I was selling this event to them."
Getting the restaurants on board seemed like it might be a tricky task, as Michael figured it would cost each business $30, in addition to the donated food, to be a part of the Sampler. The money was for advertising and, since admission to the Hillsborough Sampler is free, there would be no profit for any parties involved.
"There are costs for the event," Michael said. "We need to advertise. Advertising is a lot of money. We’re advertising with the Beacon and the Voice (the HHS paper). That costs a lot of money. We also don’t want to charge admission, we want it to be free, so the costs had to go on the restaurants themselves. I thought that was fair because they would be the ones benefiting from this.
"I got them on board."
The way Michael came up with the idea for the Sampler was by working with his original project at the internship. He started out doing promotional work for Maestro 206, which has been open for less than a year and is located at 150 Route 206. He would come up with ideas to net the restaurant more business and eventually that developed into the Hillsborough Sampler.
"Initially I was just working with the Maestro 206, seeing how they can integrate themselves into the community," Michael said. "When I did some more research I realized that there was something like 22 new restaurants that have opened up in the last two years in Hillsborough. A lot of them I had never heard of, and I was interested in getting to know these businesses better.
"I realized there wasn’t any way that I could meet all these businesses personally and work with them like I work with Maestro. So what I decided to do was hold a sampler for all the new restaurants; this way they could all benefit and I could help them out."
Michael was one of 20 HHS seniors to intern with the Business Advocate’s Office this year. The internship runs from early September to Jan. 22. He hasn’t decided where he will go to college next fall but knows he wants to major in something business related.
"I really enjoyed the process of setting this up," he said. "It was great working with all the business people and seeing all the different stuff I had to do; it was a really interesting process."

