Christine Merki
Sales
Christine Merki
Account Manager
Christine brings more than thirteen years of local media sales experience to the Alaska Business sales team. When she’s not using her vast marketing know-how in the office, Christine—originally from Austin—enjoys hot yoga, Pilates, gardening, and reading. Her journalism and Russian studies at University of MO-Columbia and The Poynter Institute have prepared her well for life at Alaska Business. Christine’s marketing knowledge includes creative, media planning, strategy, and market research.
In This Issue
The Marx Bros. Café
January 2020
Jack Amon and Richard “Van” Hale opened the doors of the Marx Bros. Café on October 18, 1979; however, the two had already been partners in cuisine for some time, having created the Wednesday Night Gourmet Wine Tasting Society and Volleyball Team Which Now Meets on Sunday, a weekly evening of food and wine. It was actually the end of the weekly event that spurred the name of the restaurant: hours after its final service, Amon and Hale were hauling equipment and furnishings out of their old location and to their now-iconic building on Third Street, all while managing arguments about equipment ownership, a visit from the police, and quite a bit of wine. “If you’ve ever seen the movie ‘A Night at the Opera” starring the Marx Brothers, that’s what it was like,” Hale explains.