When Montgomery County Council member Tom Hucker resurrected Silver Spring Restaurant Week after a nearly decade-long hiatus, many wondered if diners would respond.
A few days after the event ended, the answer appears to be yes.
Several restaurant owners and managers whose restaurants participated said they saw an uptick in customers during the event last week.
“I think it was successful,” Jennifer Meltzer, co-owner of All Set Restaurant & Bar, said. “I think they did, overall, a really nice job.”
Meltzer said the week helped to get the word out about her new restaurant, which opened in April.
“We had a wonderful experience,” Katie Golden, general manager of Sligo Café, said. “We did find we were a little busier than usual. We got a lot of wonderful feedback about the food and I did see some new faces in here.”
However, Golden tempered that by saying it was hard to pinpoint if the restaurant week increased business or if it was from people returning from summer vacation and school starting.
Roberto Pietrobono, co-owner of Olazzo in Silver Spring, said the week of prix-fixe menus helped expose his restaurant to new clientele, especially at lunch time.
“Where we’re situated, lunch is a hard thing to capture, so that was the most important thing for us,” Pietrobono said. He added that the week after Labor Day is typically one of the slower times for the restaurant, so it helped pick up some additional business during that time.
The nearly 40 restaurants that participated offered $12 two-course or $17 three-course lunch menus and $17 two-course or $27 three-course dinner menus. The event, which was organized by Hucker’s office, was free for restaurants to participate in and marketing was done through in-kind contributions from sponsors like Comcast and Peterson Companies, as well as by the restaurants themselves, according to Hucker.
That made it a little unique compared to other area restaurant weeks, which are often organized by restaurant associations.
“We’re really delighted with the success of restaurant week,” Hucker said. “All the owners we’ve spoken to want to bring it back next year.”
Hucker’s staff is now distributing a formal survey to collect feedback on what they may change for next year’s event, which he says will probably happen around the same time in late summer or early fall.
The restaurant owners and managers said they wouldn’t change too much—except to possibly have a discussion on the timing of the event as well as the price points.
Hucker also said he may be doing different events down the line for the community.
“We’re going to be looking for ways that local government can use the megaphone that we have to support and promote the great local small businesses,” Hucker said.