Over the past decade, we initially built a reputation as the leading culinary tourism company in North America. We began to receive requests from clients for both team building and events that did not always include tours. Seeing an opportunity to build new, exciting products and services, we created a team and built sister company 4Lobe Events.
Bringing culinary and cultural elements to a group event helps to enhance the customer experience, and offers a substitute for corporate and non corporate groups looking for a different kind of event and team building activity.
We offer tour based events throughout Houston, bringing groups to some of the cityŐs most exciting, interesting neighborhoods. Some of the areas our tours visit include Downtown, Midtown, Montrose, the Heights, Rice Village, Discovery Green, and the Galleria.
In addition, our team building activities and culinary focused events can be run in venues throughout the entire Houston Metro area, including surrounding suburbs.
Contact us by email at info@4lobe.com or by phone at 713.554.1735 for more information to learn what we can do for your group. Our goal is to offer our products as convenient as possible to your group.
One of our most popular team building events is our Culinary Challenge series. Groups are split up into teams, using our mobile kitchen systems, our pantry, and their creativity, to work together in order to conceptualize, create and present a dish or dishes to a panel of judges within a limited timeframe.
Groups are given a specific theme to help drive their creation. The events are led by our emcees chefs, and support instructors, based on the specific Culinary Challenge. Within each team, individuals have different roles, that when combined, help teams create the finished product(s).
Each culinary challenge features a configuration of our mobile kitchen. The station is typically set up for groups of up to seven individuals. We can have up to 15 mobile kitchens and one pantry in a particular challenge per 4Lobe emcee team (roughly 110 guests). Groups that exceed 110 guests at the same time require more emcee teams, and more pantrIes to accommodate up to 1000 ppl.
The pantry offers guests a bounty of produce, grains, dairy, meat, spices, herbs, and more based on the particular challenge. Use it to your advantage to create an amazing item.
For Culinary Challenges that are not based on the creation of a dish, the pantry will be altered based on the challenge. For instance, any dessert, cocktail, and spice based challenges will have pantries stocked appropriately.
including:Iron chef
inspired, homegrown Houston, Chopped
inspired,
Cutthroat Kitchen
inspired, Cake creation challenge, Cupcake Wars
inspired,
Cocktails, The from scratch soup off, Pizza creation
The ultimate spice blend, more!
All Houston culinary challenges can be combined with drinks and appetizers before the event, catered meals, happy hours, and receptions. The team building event can be run for as few as 6 and over 1000. Contact to learn how our culinary challenge team building can work for your group.
Prepare a delicious dish or meal while being instructed by our chefs in our Houston cooking classes. Classes offer a step by step, fully demonstrative approach, supplemented by custom recipes. Choose from a variety of skill levels and styles based on the needs of your group.
Cook together with others in our team based cooking classes. The approach enables the event to be a team building activity with groups working together in order to create a meal.
Led by one of our chefs and emceed (when needed), groups still recieve recipes, guidance and demonstrations. During the class, individuals in each group will have roles to ensure each part of the meal is created.
Our mobile kitchen systems are utilized during cooking classes to ensure greater venue flexibility.
All of our cooking classes can be set for individual or group events. Some of the cooking class options (based on chef availability) are as follows:
Stocks and sauces, Cooking 101, Plating to perfection, Understanding Gulf Coast cooking, One pot gourmet, Understanding recipes, Sharpening your Knife skills, Transforming leftovers, Creativity in the kitchen, Quick desserts, Healthy cooking in gourmet cuisine
Take to the streets of some of HoustonŐs historic neighborhoods to find dishes, drinks, and important historic and architectural features during our culinary scavenger hunt.
Work together with a group and use our custom guides to seek out various items throughout a neighborhood. You may have to answer some questions, take photographs, meet locals, sample specialties and more in this interactive team building challenge.
The culinary scavenger hunt is led by one (or several) of our well trained guides, who teaches your group a bit about the area, and is available to help throughout the event. At the end, groups submit their work, and the winning team receives a prize.
Walking or motorcoach based Food Tours are available in some of HoustonŐs hottest neighborhoods, including Midtown, Downtown, the Heights, Montrose, Rice Village, and the Galleria. Choose from one of our current food tours, or let us customize your food tour for your group.
A food tour is a fully guided tour that brings together the history, architecture, culture and food and drink of the area. It may be walking or motorcoach based, depending on the area, timing, and temperature. Your group stops at typically 4 establishments for specially created dishes and drinks, depending on the tour.
There are variations to the Food Tour, including the Dine Around, Tasting Tour, Hybrid Tour, Progressive Dinner (or meal), and Single Restaurant Dine Around.
A tasting tour is similar to a standard food tour, but rather than visiting 4-5 stops, guests visit 6-10 places. Rather than tapas style small plates or family style dishes, stops are smaller, more sample sized. Often samples are enjoyed standing up rather than sitting down and may be had on the go.
A hybrid tour is a combination of a tasting tour and food tour, where guests enjoy some samples, and some dishes at sit down restaurants.
All our food tours can be combined with receptions, or happy hours, or have other team building elements added. Contact us for more information about Food Tours and other Culinary Tours at info@4lobe.com and 713-554-1735.
A Houston Dine Around is a more formal, fully customizable version of a food tour. Guests may have several courses at each restaurant, and dishes may have beer, wine, or cocktail pairings at each place. Guests typically visit 2 or 3 restaurants.
Dine Arounds can accommodate large groups, either by staggering stops or visiting larger restaurants. They are made to feel intimate, as additional guides are brought in based on group size. Groups can be as small as 2 and as large as a thousand, spread over several Houston neighborhoods.
Dine Arounds can be created to be nearly identical to Food Tours, or very different depending on the specifications of the group. Costs can be from affordable to VIP level, depending on need.
A good option for larger groups and conventions, a single restaurant dine around offers guests a pre set meal with several entree and appetizer options at restaurants throughout Houston. 4Lobe Events takes care of transportation, restaurants and options, and guests get to pick their ideal restaurant in advance.
Our culinary focused team building activities have been created to enhance bonding, improve morale, build trust, and develop working relationships. By bringing additional sights, smells and sounds that cannot be found in other team building activities, our corporate team building activities leave a lasting impression with clients far after the activity is over.
Corporate team building activities help managers and subordinates get to know each other better, introduce new hires to colleagues, in a fun and lightly competitive way. Whether its offered on an annual or monthly basis, corporate team building activities are an effective tool.
We work with nearly any themes or style and incorporate them either acutely or overtly in order to help your group get the most out of a team building event with 4Lobe Events.
Culinary focused team building activities can in addition be an entertaining option for non corporate groups as well. We work with wedding parties, groups of friends, bachelor parties and more
All our team building activities that are not historically tour centric are available throughout the Houston area, including the Woodlands, Pasadena, League City, Sugar Land, Pearland, Galveston, Kingwood, etc.
All our events have the ability to become a team building activity. Please let our planners know today how we can help!
Provide us with your houston event requirements, and our team will develop from a single event to a fully integrated itinerary of events, team building activities, and much more.
Our 4Lobe Houston Event Planning staff and creative team works directly with you throughout the way to ensure the product you receive is provided along with the best possible service throughout, from the initial idea generation process to the event itself.
With nearly a decade of experience in the creation and development of corporate and non corporate events and team building activities, we have an archive of hundreds of creations and variations of culinary (and non culinary) focused events.
Our staff, featuring chefs, event coordinators, emcees, tour guides and support, are trained and certified through ASA, the nation's longest running culinary certification not for profit organization.
Although our focus is on culinary events and team building activities, we create single and multi day itineraries that combine our core products with other event needs, such as securing meeting space throughout houston, transportation and logistics, motivational speakers, meals, spousal events and much more.
Working in cooperation with our sister organization Welcome Houston DMC to offer Destination Management services with a culinary and cultural theme. Our destination management philosophy provides groups with all the functions you would expect, including transportation, accomodation, event planning, meet and greet, meeting and venue space and more. In addition, we bring elements of Houston to our clients, highlighting its food, drink and culture.
We believe a culinary and cultural approach to destination management offers guests a way to experience the city and region without having to go anywhere.
Contact us for more information about culinary and cultural focused destination management, and how it can work for your next group visiting Houston.
Enjoy parts houston or countries around the world with our interactive reception series. Hosted by one of our guides, you are brought through featured houston neighborhoods, other cities or even other cultures entirely that are recreated using food, drink, images, music, and stories recited by some of our highly trained guides.
Victuals combines a reception with a food tour in one venue for a unique interactive experience. Email or call us to learn more, or for a proposal.
Enjoy Tex-Mex in Montrose, drinks in Market Square and hang out in the Heights. And if you have room for anything else, head into one of the great breweries in the area for great local drinks.
