Now that every nook and cranny has its own restaurant week, a growing number of locations are tweaking the formula to create a second promotional opportunity for local eateries.
The twist is showcasing local ingredients as part of the deal. Not only can foodies try the must-visit places at a discount, but now they can bask in the locavore movement, munching on fresh and artisan products from producers just a morel toss away.
Washington, D.C., jumped on the bandwagon with the inaugural Eat Local First Week, which concluded for participating restaurants last week. It’s not be confused with the Farm-to-Street Block Party, where local beer and wine makers had the spotlight.
The much-bigger and more heavily marketed DC Restaurant Week begins next month, a warm-weather follow-up to the Restaurant Week that was held in mid-January.
Not all the new restaurants weeks are big-city affairs. Ohio’s Athens County is in the midst of its local-food restaurant festival, 30-Mile Meals. Thirty restaurants are featuring foods from farms and producers within a 30-mile radius of Athens, Ohio, the home of Ohio University.
There’s an obvious limitation to the local-foods restaurant fests: For most areas, the promotions have to be held in the summer or early fall, when local produce is in season. Yet summer is typically the busiest seasons for restaurants. They need the boost in winter, when patrons are loath to leave the warmth of their homes and brave icy roads.
It’s not an issue for Sonoma County, Calif., whose farmers and artisan producers are busy all year. So it can focus on local produce during late February.
Other areas are obviously exploring the shoulder seasons, where some produce might be available, but has to be supplemented with foods like cheeses, beers, wines and even seafood.
If you want a sense of how big the promotions can be, head to the Lone Star State next week for the Go Texan Restaurant Roundup, where places throughout the state will be featuring local foods. The event not only promotes dining out, but generates funds for local food banks.
The event, funded in part by the state, was started four years ago.
Showing posts with label promotions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label promotions. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Promotional events catch restaurants' malaise
Restaurants’ financial struggles are spreading to dining-out promotional events.
News emerged yesterday of an involuntary bankruptcy filing for Taste of Minnesota, an annual food fair where restaurants set up booths to provide paying attendees with samples of menu specialties. More than 40 restaurants reportedly participated in the most recent festival, which was held over the July 4th weekend in Minneapolis.
Now comes word that the presenter of Texas’ Austin Restaurant Week is having financial problems as well. The local branch of the Business Journal newspaper chain said the fate of the weeklong promotion of local restaurants is now “uncertain.”
Those developments are in sharp contrast with the recent disclosure that California will hold a Restaurant Month next year as a complement to local week-long promotions.
News emerged yesterday of an involuntary bankruptcy filing for Taste of Minnesota, an annual food fair where restaurants set up booths to provide paying attendees with samples of menu specialties. More than 40 restaurants reportedly participated in the most recent festival, which was held over the July 4th weekend in Minneapolis.
Now comes word that the presenter of Texas’ Austin Restaurant Week is having financial problems as well. The local branch of the Business Journal newspaper chain said the fate of the weeklong promotion of local restaurants is now “uncertain.”
Those developments are in sharp contrast with the recent disclosure that California will hold a Restaurant Month next year as a complement to local week-long promotions.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Who said a week had to be seven days--or even 14?
The latest casualty of the Great Recession appears to be the calendar, or at least the one used for restaurant promotions. A week once meant seven days, no exceptions. Now that timeframe can extend to more than a month if we’re talking about Restaurant Weeks, the campaigns where a location’s fine-dining places simultaneously offer multi-course meals for the same bargain price.
In New York City, birthplace of the promotion, “week” was first redefined this winter as two partial weeks—six days in mid-January, followed by a regular Saturday night, then reinstituted for the next five days. It’s a model that’s been widely copied.
But with conditions being what they are, restaurants in New York decided to extend the cooperative promotion—for four more weeks.
The city’s restaurant trade was hardly alone in trying to squeeze a few more bookings out of the promotion. Philadelphia, Baltimore, Denver, San Diego and Los Angeles all extended their timeframes, to name just a few of the places that offer a Restaurant Week.
And I really, really mean those are just a small sampling. Another cultural side effect of the financial meltdown is the spread of the Restaurant Week concept to every nook and cranny where you’ll find a fork and a menu. Ohio’s Miami Valley has a Restaurant Week. So does Norfolk, VA, and Bethesday, MD. They, by the way, all extended their Restaurant Week by at least a…well, a week. As it used to be defined.
Floral Park hasn’t yet lengthened its Restaurant Week. This year marks the first time the promotion has been adopted by the little-known town in New York’s borough of Queens. Floral Park Restaurant Week is in addition to the Queens Restaurant Week that was held late last year.
This year also marks the first Restaurant Week for Orange County, Calif., the restaurant-rich expanse south of Los Angeles.
It’s not as if the proliferation of Restaurant Weeks is watering down their appeal. Denver’s roster of participating places reportedly swelled this year to a record 225 establishments, from 174 in 2008. The Chicago Tribune reported that 130 restaurants are participating in the Windy City’s Restaurant Week, compared with 35 places last year.
Skeptics say a Restaurant Week is nothing more than dressed-up discounting. I’m not sure why that bothers them. By all accounts, the tactic appears to work.
Value menus, varied portion sizes, bundled meals and out-and-out price chopping have become the standard marketing tools for casual-dining and fast-food chains in the current environment. Upper-scale restaurants seem to have found their Vise-Grip in the form of Restaurant Week.
In New York City, birthplace of the promotion, “week” was first redefined this winter as two partial weeks—six days in mid-January, followed by a regular Saturday night, then reinstituted for the next five days. It’s a model that’s been widely copied.
But with conditions being what they are, restaurants in New York decided to extend the cooperative promotion—for four more weeks.
The city’s restaurant trade was hardly alone in trying to squeeze a few more bookings out of the promotion. Philadelphia, Baltimore, Denver, San Diego and Los Angeles all extended their timeframes, to name just a few of the places that offer a Restaurant Week.
And I really, really mean those are just a small sampling. Another cultural side effect of the financial meltdown is the spread of the Restaurant Week concept to every nook and cranny where you’ll find a fork and a menu. Ohio’s Miami Valley has a Restaurant Week. So does Norfolk, VA, and Bethesday, MD. They, by the way, all extended their Restaurant Week by at least a…well, a week. As it used to be defined.
Floral Park hasn’t yet lengthened its Restaurant Week. This year marks the first time the promotion has been adopted by the little-known town in New York’s borough of Queens. Floral Park Restaurant Week is in addition to the Queens Restaurant Week that was held late last year.
This year also marks the first Restaurant Week for Orange County, Calif., the restaurant-rich expanse south of Los Angeles.
It’s not as if the proliferation of Restaurant Weeks is watering down their appeal. Denver’s roster of participating places reportedly swelled this year to a record 225 establishments, from 174 in 2008. The Chicago Tribune reported that 130 restaurants are participating in the Windy City’s Restaurant Week, compared with 35 places last year.
Skeptics say a Restaurant Week is nothing more than dressed-up discounting. I’m not sure why that bothers them. By all accounts, the tactic appears to work.
Value menus, varied portion sizes, bundled meals and out-and-out price chopping have become the standard marketing tools for casual-dining and fast-food chains in the current environment. Upper-scale restaurants seem to have found their Vise-Grip in the form of Restaurant Week.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Trying to cook up the next Restaurant Week
Zagat is rallying 17 of New York’s most worshipped chefs for an off-beat promotion that one coordinator likened to Restaurant Week, the business booster now used by restaurants from coast to coast.
Stanley Lobel, the Babe Ruth of butchers, said the Vintage Dinner Series could give a lasting lift to the bottom lines of restaurants everywhere by teaching the public to eat low-cost meats that haven’t been seen in kitchens for 100 years.
The promotion calls for a series of banquets featuring dishes, drinks and cocktails from the 19th century. Various signatures of that age will be served—apparently in copious quantities—at the participating restaurants on different nights from Jan. 12 through March 25.
“Each restaurant will hold its own banquet inspired by the 19th century,” with menus varying from feast to feast, explained Tim Zagat, co-publisher of the merlot-colored bibles of sport dining. Seating will be limited, and participants will be charged an all-inclusive price consistent with the host restaurant’s regular menu prices. Translation: Something stratospheric for Per Se, where a normal meal costs the equivalent of a Caribbean vacation, but only skyscraper high at a place like Le Bernardin, chef Eric Ripert’s celebrated outpost.
Lobel, who helped Zagat hatch the idea, cited such banquet menu possibilities as a stuffed calf’s heart. “We all know that’s a round piece of meat that looks like a heart,” explained Lobel, whose family runs Lobel’s of New York, the DeBeers of proteins. But, he conjectured, what if it was stuffed and baked into something delicious? “The cost on that is extremely reasonable and can be given away at a very attractive price.”
“We’re going to see unusual cuts of beef and lamb that are going to be a lot more economical,” he said. “I think that’s going to trickle down to all restaurants.”
He also cited beef liver as a Gilded Age favorite—“not calf’s liver, which is what you usually see. I’m talking beef liver, baked, finished off on the grill so there’s a charred outside, topped with my favorite spice, garlic.”
In addition, “one of the things I’m going to ask the chefs to look into is the blood of the animal,” he said, noting that it was used as “a healer” during the 1800s. He explained that the chefs may want to use it “as gravies, as dippings, as sauces.”
“We’re going to have some meals we haven’t seen in 100 years,” said Zagat. He noted such possible components as game, or, on the drinks side, punches and vintage cocktails. In addition, the banquets might resurrect the sort of presentation showmanship that dazzled Diamond Jim Brady—wows like Cherries Jubilee.
Zagat said the Vintage promotion was conceived as a way of bringing back classic dishes “that have disappeared from American culture.
“This is not just to have a series of parties,” he said. “This is to bring back a lot of what we have lost.”
Lobel, who is working with the chefs to craft authentic 1800s menus, was more straightforward about the potential business payback. “The last time the restaurant industry got a kick was Restaurant Week a few years ago,” he said.
Actually, Restaurant Week began more than a few years ago. A number of restaurants in the city decided in the 1980s to give their lunch traffic a boost during the heat of summer by all offering three-course meals for a price base don the year--$19.88, $19.89, etc. It’s now held twice a year in New York, in winter as well as summer, and has been copied by restaurateurs from coast to coast.
As part of the Vintage Dinner Series, participating restaurants will be asked to donate one table to a charity of their choice. Presumably the seats will be auctioned off or someone be used as a money-raising prize.
Zagat said reservations for the dinners would be handled individually by each place. “I think a lot of the restaurants will be sold out by the end of the day,” he said.
The participating chefs include such marquee-topping stars as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Mario Batali and Lidia Bastianich of Del Posto, Thomas Keller of Per Se, Alain Ducasse of Adour, Charlie Palmer of Aureole, David Bouley of Bouley, Tom Valenti of Ouest and David Barber of Blue Hill. The complete list is available at Zagat’s web page for New York restaurants.
Stanley Lobel, the Babe Ruth of butchers, said the Vintage Dinner Series could give a lasting lift to the bottom lines of restaurants everywhere by teaching the public to eat low-cost meats that haven’t been seen in kitchens for 100 years.
The promotion calls for a series of banquets featuring dishes, drinks and cocktails from the 19th century. Various signatures of that age will be served—apparently in copious quantities—at the participating restaurants on different nights from Jan. 12 through March 25.
“Each restaurant will hold its own banquet inspired by the 19th century,” with menus varying from feast to feast, explained Tim Zagat, co-publisher of the merlot-colored bibles of sport dining. Seating will be limited, and participants will be charged an all-inclusive price consistent with the host restaurant’s regular menu prices. Translation: Something stratospheric for Per Se, where a normal meal costs the equivalent of a Caribbean vacation, but only skyscraper high at a place like Le Bernardin, chef Eric Ripert’s celebrated outpost.
Lobel, who helped Zagat hatch the idea, cited such banquet menu possibilities as a stuffed calf’s heart. “We all know that’s a round piece of meat that looks like a heart,” explained Lobel, whose family runs Lobel’s of New York, the DeBeers of proteins. But, he conjectured, what if it was stuffed and baked into something delicious? “The cost on that is extremely reasonable and can be given away at a very attractive price.”
“We’re going to see unusual cuts of beef and lamb that are going to be a lot more economical,” he said. “I think that’s going to trickle down to all restaurants.”
He also cited beef liver as a Gilded Age favorite—“not calf’s liver, which is what you usually see. I’m talking beef liver, baked, finished off on the grill so there’s a charred outside, topped with my favorite spice, garlic.”
In addition, “one of the things I’m going to ask the chefs to look into is the blood of the animal,” he said, noting that it was used as “a healer” during the 1800s. He explained that the chefs may want to use it “as gravies, as dippings, as sauces.”
“We’re going to have some meals we haven’t seen in 100 years,” said Zagat. He noted such possible components as game, or, on the drinks side, punches and vintage cocktails. In addition, the banquets might resurrect the sort of presentation showmanship that dazzled Diamond Jim Brady—wows like Cherries Jubilee.
Zagat said the Vintage promotion was conceived as a way of bringing back classic dishes “that have disappeared from American culture.
“This is not just to have a series of parties,” he said. “This is to bring back a lot of what we have lost.”
Lobel, who is working with the chefs to craft authentic 1800s menus, was more straightforward about the potential business payback. “The last time the restaurant industry got a kick was Restaurant Week a few years ago,” he said.
Actually, Restaurant Week began more than a few years ago. A number of restaurants in the city decided in the 1980s to give their lunch traffic a boost during the heat of summer by all offering three-course meals for a price base don the year--$19.88, $19.89, etc. It’s now held twice a year in New York, in winter as well as summer, and has been copied by restaurateurs from coast to coast.
As part of the Vintage Dinner Series, participating restaurants will be asked to donate one table to a charity of their choice. Presumably the seats will be auctioned off or someone be used as a money-raising prize.
Zagat said reservations for the dinners would be handled individually by each place. “I think a lot of the restaurants will be sold out by the end of the day,” he said.
The participating chefs include such marquee-topping stars as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Mario Batali and Lidia Bastianich of Del Posto, Thomas Keller of Per Se, Alain Ducasse of Adour, Charlie Palmer of Aureole, David Bouley of Bouley, Tom Valenti of Ouest and David Barber of Blue Hill. The complete list is available at Zagat’s web page for New York restaurants.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Since we last met...
Sorry if I sound a little rusty. Since Nation’s Restaurant News laid me off Tuesday, I’ve not been blogging, at least about the restaurant business (though I have been doodling about my new status at Pink-slipped). I figured I’d clear some of the cobwebs by offering a few observations about the industry’s week that was:
Pretty soon T.G.I. Friday’s is going to start giving away living room sets with every meal you order. The casual chain’s frequent-guest program, Give Me More Stripes, started out with the usual bonuses for heavy traffic. Then it tried to sweeten the deal by throwing a free helping of chips and dip into the mix. Now the sector’s granddaddy is adding the whipped cream of a free dessert to any card carrier who visits a unit next weekend and buys an entree. I’m holding out for a steak-knives offer.
Taco Bell president Greg Creed has cajones bellgrande. First the chain proves it’s a badass by dissing 50 Cent. Last summer it suggested the mega-star reprise a Chihuahua’s role by serving as an unlikely pitchman for the Bell. Change your name to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent, the home office publicly offered, and we might be able to come through with bling-bling—a $10,000 payment to the charity of your choice [Thugs Without Bullets, perhaps? Teeth Grills for the Disadvantaged?). The proposal was put forth just as Taco Bell was rolling out a new value menu, an event that may not have snagged much publicity on its own. But Taco Bell tweaking a nasty mother like 50 Cent? Big news, dog.
50 Cent, the only rapper whose music I refuse to let my wife play when I’m in the car, responded with a lawsuit. He may try hard (and convincingly) to come off as a gangsta in the hood, but he’s a brilliant businessman who’s not going to let his name be used gratis as part of a publicity ploy.
Taco Bell should’ve been grateful that the response wasn’t a drive-by. But instead of dropping the matter, it filed a blistering defense that accused the Gangsta Formerly Known as Curtis James Jackson III of not being able to take a joke.
Indeed, the Sept. 19 court filing, brought to light yesterday by the gossip site TMZ was one big bitch-slap (Fast Company called it “counter-blathering.”) Taco Bell alleged in its filed response that 50 Cent nee Jackson “has a well-publicized track record of making threats, starting feuds and filing lawsuits,” and that his suit was merely an attempt to “burnish his gangsta rapper persona.”
“Instead of responding to Taco Bell's sincere offer in the friendly and humorous spirit in which it was issued,” the suit reads, “Jackson launched an aggressive, offensive attack on Taco Bell in the press. In a heavily publicized sound bite, Jackson threatened legal action against Taco Bell stating, "When my legal team is finished with them, Taco Bell is going to have a new
corporate slogan: 'We messed with the bull and got the horns.'"
The filing—technically an “affirmative defense”--disputes or denies each on of 50 Cents’ assertions in turn. It then asks the court hearing the action to dismiss it and make the the rapper pay Taco Bell’s legal fees.
A heads up to Creed: Remember Tupac, my man.
Just think ‘pizza’ and your delivery order will be placed. Maybe we’re not there yet, but the major delivery chains are certainly inching closer to that Isaac Asimov-ian vision. Domino’s, a leader in online ordering, added the option last week of letting TiVo users put in for a pie via the set-top box. Papa John’s announced that it would try to protect IM fanatics from malnutrition by allowing them to buy a delivered pizza without leaving Facebook, an option that Pizza Hut started added in mid-Oct.
So, let us review. Want to order a pizza? You can now do it via your phone (cell or landline), computer, Facebook account, TiVo, video game, or text-messaging capability.
My money’s on Pizza Hut as the first to accept brainwave orders. The chain should just hope it doesn’t intercept any that were beamed by 50 Cent at its sister brand.
Pretty soon T.G.I. Friday’s is going to start giving away living room sets with every meal you order. The casual chain’s frequent-guest program, Give Me More Stripes, started out with the usual bonuses for heavy traffic. Then it tried to sweeten the deal by throwing a free helping of chips and dip into the mix. Now the sector’s granddaddy is adding the whipped cream of a free dessert to any card carrier who visits a unit next weekend and buys an entree. I’m holding out for a steak-knives offer.
Taco Bell president Greg Creed has cajones bellgrande. First the chain proves it’s a badass by dissing 50 Cent. Last summer it suggested the mega-star reprise a Chihuahua’s role by serving as an unlikely pitchman for the Bell. Change your name to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent, the home office publicly offered, and we might be able to come through with bling-bling—a $10,000 payment to the charity of your choice [Thugs Without Bullets, perhaps? Teeth Grills for the Disadvantaged?). The proposal was put forth just as Taco Bell was rolling out a new value menu, an event that may not have snagged much publicity on its own. But Taco Bell tweaking a nasty mother like 50 Cent? Big news, dog.
50 Cent, the only rapper whose music I refuse to let my wife play when I’m in the car, responded with a lawsuit. He may try hard (and convincingly) to come off as a gangsta in the hood, but he’s a brilliant businessman who’s not going to let his name be used gratis as part of a publicity ploy.
Taco Bell should’ve been grateful that the response wasn’t a drive-by. But instead of dropping the matter, it filed a blistering defense that accused the Gangsta Formerly Known as Curtis James Jackson III of not being able to take a joke.
Indeed, the Sept. 19 court filing, brought to light yesterday by the gossip site TMZ was one big bitch-slap (Fast Company called it “counter-blathering.”) Taco Bell alleged in its filed response that 50 Cent nee Jackson “has a well-publicized track record of making threats, starting feuds and filing lawsuits,” and that his suit was merely an attempt to “burnish his gangsta rapper persona.”
“Instead of responding to Taco Bell's sincere offer in the friendly and humorous spirit in which it was issued,” the suit reads, “Jackson launched an aggressive, offensive attack on Taco Bell in the press. In a heavily publicized sound bite, Jackson threatened legal action against Taco Bell stating, "When my legal team is finished with them, Taco Bell is going to have a new
corporate slogan: 'We messed with the bull and got the horns.'"
The filing—technically an “affirmative defense”--disputes or denies each on of 50 Cents’ assertions in turn. It then asks the court hearing the action to dismiss it and make the the rapper pay Taco Bell’s legal fees.
A heads up to Creed: Remember Tupac, my man.
Just think ‘pizza’ and your delivery order will be placed. Maybe we’re not there yet, but the major delivery chains are certainly inching closer to that Isaac Asimov-ian vision. Domino’s, a leader in online ordering, added the option last week of letting TiVo users put in for a pie via the set-top box. Papa John’s announced that it would try to protect IM fanatics from malnutrition by allowing them to buy a delivered pizza without leaving Facebook, an option that Pizza Hut started added in mid-Oct.
So, let us review. Want to order a pizza? You can now do it via your phone (cell or landline), computer, Facebook account, TiVo, video game, or text-messaging capability.
My money’s on Pizza Hut as the first to accept brainwave orders. The chain should just hope it doesn’t intercept any that were beamed by 50 Cent at its sister brand.
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