The Best of the Central Coast invites, engages, and allows you, our audience, to recognize the best businesses, organizations, and people in our area. Our focus is on businesses and professionals who support, serve and do business in SLO County.

Nominations and voting will take place on VoteCentralCoast.com.

To ensure accuracy, we ask for basic registration during the nomination process. You can also provide your name and email to receive program updates. You can submit nominees in any category and return anytime before the deadline to submit more nominees! For fair voting, registration may be required, including your name and email. ​ The Tribune does not review or consider factors such as business licenses, trade affiliations, Better Business Bureau ratings, or online ratings when determining nominees or winners. Best of the Central Coast nominations and winners are solely chosen by the public through online nominations and voting.

No. All nominations and voting are done through our website and link to our voting platform at VoteCentralCoast.com

The nomination period begins Monday, September 29 at 12PM, and ends Friday, October 10 at 5PM. ​ ​We rely on our audience to supply us with the names of outstanding people, businesses, and establishments in each of the 250+ subcategories. It only takes one nomination for a qualified business to be included on the ballot. Once the nominees are finalized, our audience will be asked to vote for one option in each subcategory. Voters are allowed to cast their votes once per day throughout the voting period. Our audience and business owners nominate their favorites by selecting one of 11 topic areas (Agriculture, Eat & Drink, Education, Health & Beauty, Home & Garden, Law, Motors, Real Estate, Services, Shopping, Things to Do). Nominees should be individuals and businesses that serve SLO County. ​ Nominating is as simple as entering a name and city in text entry fields. It’s best, but not required, to provide additional information on the nominee so that we can verify them (Phone number, address, URL). You may return any time before Friday, October 10 at 5PM to add nominations. Businesses with multiple locations appear as a single nomination for the voting phase unless otherwise specified by the business. Business associates and advertisers of The Tribune and any other owner-affiliated company are not given special treatment, including but not limited to our presenting sponsor. ​ Users are not required to nominate in all categories, but must submit the nomination form by hitting the "submit" button at the bottom of the page. Users are permitted to nominate a single business in more than one category.

For a category to qualify for the ballot, there must be a minimum of 5 separate businesses that are competing for votes. If someone is nominated in a category that they do not qualify for, we make reasonable accommodations to move the nominee to a similar category. Nominees are moved to the voting ballot. ​ The Tribune does not review or consider factors such as business licenses, trade affiliations, Better Business Bureau ratings, or online ratings when determining nominees or winners. Nominations and winners are solely chosen by the public through online nominations and voting.

Businesses, organizations, or individuals that are nominated by our audience are placed on our ballot after they are verified. Should a business earn enough votes to be voted a Gold win, they may be required to complete a simple online questionnaire with basic business information including name, location(s), year established, business hours, phone number, web address (if any) and submit a photo of the business, organization or individual. There is no cost or obligation to participate. ​ Be sure to download your free promotional assets to use on your website, social media, or business to promote your nomination during the voting period.

The regular voting period begins at Monday, October 27 at 12PM and ends Friday, November 14 at 5PM. ​ Nominations and votes are tabulated by a third-party. The Tribune and its affiliates do not know the results of the contest until after the votes are tabulated. In each category, our audience votes on their favorite nominee. You are permitted to vote in each category once per day. Businesses, institutions, individuals and schools are encouraged to promote the contest in order to gain nominations and/or votes. Competitive advertising, special offers, and campaigns are permitted; however, The Tribune at its sole discretion reserves the right to exclude from the competition any businesses or individuals that engage in activities intended to “rig” or “fix” the voting process. Votes that are suspect may be disqualified in the count. ​ Use of bots, robotic, repetitive, automatic, programmed, vote exchange websites, vote “farming”, scripts or other automated means designed to circumvent “one ballot per person per day” rule, are not allowed. Contestants discovered using these methods for vote acceleration are subject to suspected votes being disqualified without notice, and the jeopardy of the Contestant being completely disqualified and removed from the competition. ​ Contestants risk disqualification if they use promotions involving quid pro quo strategies, such as, but not limited to "vote for us, and we’ll enter you into a drawing" or "vote for us, and we’ll give you a discount." These approaches create an unfair advantage by incentivizing votes, which goes against the contest guidelines and can result in disqualification to ensure a level playing field for all participants. ​ Business associates and advertisers of The Tribune and any other owner-affiliated company are not given special treatment, including but not limited to our presenting sponsor.

All nominations have to be verified prior to being placed on the final ballot. During the nomination process, we welcome all submissions. ​ Our ballot is a closed ballot. However, we will consider late entries into an established category by request. All late entries must be emailed to support@BestoftheCentralCoast.com for consideration.

The names of the winners are posted and announced on Sunday, March 1 online at BestoftheCentralCoast.com and honored in our Best of the Central Coast special winners magazine. In the event of a tie in any category, more than one winner or runner-up may be awarded.

Best of the Central Coast and the unique logos are the property of The Tribune and may only be used with express, written permission. Logos are licensed to winners at a marketing spend or direct payment of $995 or more. Best of the Central Coast merchandise does not count toward the logo license spend. Contact us to request your logo. ​​​ If you have already signed your logo agreement and have received your winner's logo, please review the Usage Guidelines here.