Theme: Artichoke Madness

Location: Foosball Palace, San Francisco

Year: 1998

Art: Mary Grace McGhee

Invite backstory:

‘Artichoke Madness’ branding appears for the first time. Mary Grace delivers another epic artwork capturing a crazy Artichoke standing on the Golden Gate bridge holding a croquet mallet ready to jump into all the great party options listed below.

This was the first time we had a website for the party and she made all the party options into fish which we used as navigation menus on the site.

We bought the ‘artichokemadness’ domain and I’ve included a copy of the internet provider paperwork as a blast from the past - it was a real undertaking to throw up a site in 1998!

Party Highlights

This was the first party where we had a professional chef. Yo was a student at the Culinary Academy and was the first of three Artichoke Madness Chefs who all evolved over their years cooking for the party from ‘I need a job, any job’ to ‘hmm, this is kind of fun’ to ‘and another idea . . .’ Yo did a great job cooking Artichoke preparations for many great feasts.

We introduced the first Spectacular Skybar - a beautiful wooden Sky Bar my brother Tim built (see below). It made the porch highly usable and fully enjoyable and was ideal for parties.

And of course the marketing department never sleeps - we upleveled our childcare positioning to ‘Kid’s Party’ and also upgraded the Foosball Palace to the Fabulous Foosball Palace.

The crowds continue to grow as the word gets out and It was another great party on the Embarcadero.