Downtown Dining Week kicks off Wednesday

Downtown Dining Week starts Wednesday, with nearly 70 restaurants giving patrons a deal on a meal.

Buckle up – or unbuckle, your belt that is – as Downtown Dining Week kicks off in Edmonton Wednesday.

This year, the Edmonton Downtown Business Association (EDBA) is taking a bit of a different approach while many are pinching their pennies.

More than 65 restaurants have put together multi-course meals at a fixed price with $15 and $25 lunches and brunches and $35, $50 and $65 dinners.

“This is kind of twofold. In one aspect, we’re offering the consumer a deal on dining. We’re all talking about the economy now and the cost of everything, so this is an opportunity to provide Edmontonians with a bit of a discount on their menus,” said EDBA marketing director Quinn Phillips.

“On the flip side, we’re hopeful that spurs people to either try new menu items or try new restaurants at our downtown eateries.”

Being the shoulder season for much of hospitality right now, Phillips said Downtown Dining Week is the perfect opportunity to give local restaurants a boost during an otherwise quiet couple of months.

“March and April tend to be weird months … it does tend to be a little slower, so we try to time it so that it’s (when) restaurants are already typically feeling a little bit slower,” she said.

Michael Paruby, general manager at downtown’s Campio Brewing, said being involved in the initiative aligns with the brewery’s community values.

“Number one of our guiding principles in our company is just being involved in our community,” Paruby told CTV News Edmonton.

Campio is offering a brunch and dinner menu, the latter of which Paruby is particularly excited about.

“You can start off with either a roasted beet salad or one of our tomato soups. For the main course, you have an option between our salmon bowl or our destination Calabria pizza,” said Paruby, adding that the pizza is an old favourite they brought back for the event.

For dessert, they are serving brûlée cheesecake squares.

Downtown Dining Week runs from March 11 to 22. Menus for all 68 participating businesses can be found here.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti