Date Night with Toyota & Serious Eats

Toyota is driving towards the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang with two new partnerships, and two new members of Team Toyota! In addition, they have extended and enhanced their partnership with the USA Hockey team! It’s a big year for Toyota at the Olympics as this will also be the first year they are The Olympic Partner (TOP) sponsor for the International Olympic Committee which enables them to “reach billions of people in over 200 countries and territories throughout the world” according to the Olympic website sponsorship page. Toyota’s 2 new teams are the U.S. Figure Skating team and the US Speedskating team. Figure skating, speedskating, and Hockey teams share the common ground of endorsing and participating in Learn to Skate USA which, since 1968, has taught more than 2.5 million people how to skate! “We are committed to making an impact with our winter sports presence in the United States,” said Jack Hollis, group vice president and general manager, Toyota Division. “With the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Games less than a year away, Toyota looks forward to supporting the NGBs and athletes on every step of their journey as they move toward achieving their dreams.” For more information on this exciting partnership, see the article below! "Toyota Moves Toward PyeongChang | Toyota USA Newsroom." Pressroom.toyota.com. Toyota Newsroom, 14 Mar. 2017. Web. 15 Mar. 2017. < http://pressroom.toyota.com/releases/toyota+us+figure+skating+speedskating+pyeongchange+.htm >. "2016 Olympic Marketing Report Rio 2016." International Olympic Committee. Olympic.org, 27 Feb. 2017. Web. 15 Mar. 2017. < https://www.olympic.org/sponsors >.

A new Guinness World Record™ was set by Toyota Motor Company for having the most vehicles in a hybrid parade. The parade took place at the Alameda Air Field where there were a total of 332 Prius owners in attendance to participate in the parade and help break the record. “The Bay Area is home to hundreds of thousands of proud Prius owners, and we wanted to pay homage to the Prius this Earth Day,” said Pete Carey, vice president and general manager for Toyota Motor Sales. “We wanted to celebrate this revolutionary vehicle and the folks behind the wheel who’ve always been our early-adopters, thinking bigger about their carbon footprint and environmental impact.” Currently, about 40 percent of the Prius vehicles in the country are owned by customers that live in California, with Norther California being a particularly popular Prius area. "Prius on Top…Talk about a Broken Record | Toyota." Toyota USA Newsroom. N.p., 23 Apr. 2016. Web. Apr. 2016. <http://pressroom.toyota.com/releases/prius-guiness-world-record-parade-2016.htm>.

Toyota and Serious Eats are back with the latest installment of the Serious Eats Culinary Dream Date series, where the two team up to send readers in six different cities on a date of a lifetime. On these dates, couples are picked up in a Toyota Sienna and whisked to a private dining experience at their city’s hottest restaurant. This episode begins with Sissy’s Southern Kitchen head chef and owner, Lisa Garza. Lisa is driving around Dallas, Texas to prepare for the evening’s date. Sissy’s Southern Kitchen specializes in soul and comfort food, so a major part of the experience at the restaurant is that home-like feeling the atmosphere and food provides. Because Lisa is very hands-on in the preparation process, she requires a lot of hands-free features, like the voice-activation radio and hands-free trunk release. She also requires a lot of space, which the Sienna has plenty of. Toyota then picks up couple of 23 years, Kelly and John, who are the proud owners of their own Toyota Sienna since 2008. They remark how easy it is to move, remove, and position seats and how that makes all the difference during travel and day to day. Watch their dining experience at Sissy’s below!