Downtown Lenoir, Liquid Roots claim Main Street awards

News-Topic, Lenoir, N.C.
·3 min read

Mar. 24—LENOIR — Downtown Lenoir recently won another North Carolina Main Street Award for Best Economic Recovery Initiative, and the owners of Liquid Roots were honored as Downtown's 2022 Main Street Champions.

The city's Main Street Department received the 2022 Award of Merit in the Best Economic Recovery Initiative for staff's "Pivots, Participation, & Patronage (PPP) with Digital Platforms Initiatives" program during the N.C. Main Street Conference held March 14 to 16, 2023, in Statesville.

COVID-19's shifting mandates and gathering restrictions made creating the 2021 Downtown Lenoir promotions schedule challenging. In response, the Promotions Team and City of Lenoir Main Street staff created its own "PPP" program consisting of the Leprechaun Chase Scavenger Hunt, Haunted Halloween Heist, and Elf on a Shelf in a Store in Lenoir events.

The Leprechaun Chase encouraged local residents and visitors to walk around downtown to discover leprechauns and QR codes in businesses and other points of interest. Players received a set number of points for each pot of gold/leprechaun found and challenge completed. The Haunted Halloween Mystery Heist involved the theft of the iconic Thomas Sayre "Across the Grain" sculpture. Participants played a Clue-like digital board game to solve the heist. For the Elf on the Shelf in a Store in Lenoir game, players collected digital stamps by finding elves and QR codes placed inside participating businesses.

More than 350 teams and 1,000 participants enjoyed the games, which provided much-appreciated support to downtown businesses.

The city of Lenoir Main Street Department has won eight NC Main Street awards since 2018.

On the final day of the conference, Katie and Taylor Brummett and Jamie and Tommy Brubaker, owners of Liquid Roots Brewing Project, were honored as Downtown Lenoir's 2022 Main Street Champions. Main Street champions are the heart of a downtown. They invest their time, money, and talent to improve their Main Streets. They open businesses. They volunteer. They help make local events successful and help their downtowns thrive.

In 2019, the Brummetts and Brubakers purchased the former Lenoir City Bus Station, renovated the space, and opened Liquid Roots Brewing Project. The brewery has been very successful in Downtown Lenoir and now serves as a community, family, and pet-friendly gathering place.

The Brummetts and Brubakers host numerous non-profit fundraising events, they collaborate with several downtown businesses in joint promotional activities, and they participate in all downtown festivals. Through open-mic nights, cornhole tournaments, live music gigs, and more, they bring hundreds of people into downtown every week. They also serve on community boards, including the Downtown Lenoir Development Alliance.

City of Lenoir Mayor Joe Gibbons said he was very proud of the City Main Street staff and the 2022 Main Street Champions.

"We're very proud of Matthew and Kaylynn for all their hard work to create new programs that promoted our downtown and encouraged residents to shop and support our downtown businesses," Mayor Gibbons said. "We're very proud of the Brummett and Brubaker families. We appreciate everything they have done to benefit downtown. We're glad they chose Lenoir to start their new business in 2019 and made Lenoir their home. They are wonderful representatives of Lenoir and they deserve to be the 2022 NC Main Street Champions."