El Meson restaurant in West Carrollton launches Viva La Vida streaming service

El Meson has announced plans for the launch of a new video streaming subscription service — “Viva La Vida, A Recipe for Life.”

As restaurants continue to find new ways to connect with customers and pivot given the struggles brought on by COVID-19, El Meson owners felt this would be a new and exciting way to engage with customers.

“When the initial stay-at-home orders came into place in March, we had decided to stay connected with our customers via weekly live Facebook videos showcasing how to make a gourmet three-course meal and a cocktail,” said Bill Castro, managing partner.

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“As we got back into carryout and patio dining we slowly got away from doing the videos. However, every week we heard from customers saying they really missed the videos. That’s when we decided to team up with Zac Pitts (WDTN Living Dayton) to make an ongoing video subscription service that’s a lot higher quality for our customers near and far to connect, learn, and be entertained by all of the food, wine, and cocktail knowledge we’ve obtained over the last 40 years of travel and cooking.”

The service will launch on Oct. 16, with customers given the opportunity to opt-in early to become “Founding Members” of the service that will include four original pieces of content per month and bonus features like seasonal special and special live stream parties. It will also offer live-stream cooking workshops to supplement office holiday parties and other group gatherings this winter that may not be feasible during a pandemic.

Castro and his husband, Chef Mark Abbott, began hosting “Friday watch parties” on Facebook at the start of the pandemic sharing cocktail and cooking demonstrations of some of El Meson’s favorite dishes.

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With cooler temperatures on the way, they said customers are more hungry than ever for local content that includes cooking and bar demonstrations, table-setting guides, local guests, cultural and historical knowledge of countries around the world, wine tasting notes and other culinary themed content.

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“We’re very excited about our live-stream Holiday party packages,” Castro said. “We’ve had office groups come back to El Meson year after year for the holidays and these all-digital, interactive, cooking classes and cocktail parties are the perfect way to keep the tradition going.”

To learn more about subscribing to Viva La Vida or booking a digital holiday cooking class, visit elmeson.net.

Pricing will be $24.99 per month to access the four original videos on the subscription service.

Contact this contributing writer at alexis.e.larsen@hotmail.com.