first chicago area smart meet

on sunday, july 20, 2008, we had our first chicago area smart meet at Portillo's of Forest Park. we had 8 smarts show up along with several reservation holders and one "wannabe" (bmw mini!). we had a quickie lunch then went outside to take photos and show our smarts to the gathering crowd.

Portillo's is a busy resturaunt, the average Portillo's has 4 times the business of a Mc Donalds, and Portillo's isn't open for breakfast! our smarts were parked near the drive up line, so a few hundred saw us while they were ordering their lunches. we were also close to the Kmart, so we caught a lot of Kmart shoppers as well (notice the top photo, i changed the lot sign to "K smart"! LOL)

we had a good time, got to chat a little and a few hundred curious got to oogle our smarts, some even got to sit in them. a few people came up to me and asked me if i worked for smart and if this was a dealer "display" (i had my "smart bombs" t-shirt on and all the smarts had Loeber badges) and i had my window sticker on display in my car to answer "how much?".

then we had a little impromptu "parade". SandraK's hubby ran the camera for a film "short", not too bad for his first cameraman attempt! i did a little quickie editing when i got home, probably won't get me to Cannes! a few of the smarties left a little after that.

the rest of us stuck around a while longer, entertaining more questions and ooglers, 5 smarts seem to draw as many people as 8, for most people, it was their first view of a smart, seeing 1, 5 or 8 in one place was something for them. being next to the most popular area resturaunt and a Kmart drew a lot of curious people!

we'll have another smartie meet sooner or later, the next one will be bigger! (we had a few smarties that were out of town that wanted to attend) and of course, more reservation holders will get their smarts! a special thank you to SandraK for organizing the get together! see you all again soon!