New York Restaurant Week, also known as NYC Restaurant Week is an event held twice a year in which participating

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

s in New York City offer

prix fixe Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who als ...

lunch Lunch is a meal eaten around the middle of the day. It is commonly the second meal of the day, after breakfast, and varies in size by culture and region. Etymology According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED''), the etymology ...

es and

dinner Dinner usually refers to what is in many Western cultures the largest and most formal meal of the day, which is eaten in the evening. Historically, the largest meal used to be eaten around midday, and called dinner. Especially among the elite, ...

s. At the finest restaurants, this can be a fraction of the usual prices. The event is held in early winter (January/February) and summer (June/July). Since its inception, Restaurant Week has seen an increase in appreciation, followers, and footfalls to such an extent that it has inspired people to create their own version of the event in various cities across the globe.

History

Restaurant Week began as a lunch-only promotional event in 1992 and is considered the first "restaurant week" and the price was the year $19.92 ().

Tim Zagat Nina S. Zagat (née Safronoff) and her husband, Eugene Henry "Tim" Zagat, Jr. (born 1940, New York City) (pronounced ) are the founders and publishers of Zagat Survey, Zagat Restaurant Surveys. They met at Yale Law School and were both Attorney at l ...

and

Joe Baum Joseph Harold Baum (August 17, 1920 – October 5, 1998) was an American restaurateur and innovator responsible for creating the country's first themed restaurants, including The Four Seasons Restaurant, Windows on the World, and the restored Rai ...

are credited for the "first restaurant week".

in a 2010 ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' article said that he did not see or dream of the possibility of using American Express and Coca-Cola as sponsors for future events at the time. A letter to the editor of the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

was published on July 15, 1992, in the letter Emil William Chynn praised the organization of the first "restaurant week" during the

Democratic National Convention The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 ...

, in his letter he suggested that it becomes a yearly event that sponsors like

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

and

American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...

could help boost the event. Restaurant Week celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2017, The program continues bi-annually as of 2020.

References

External links

* {{cite web, url=http://nycgo.com/restaurantweek , title=Restaurant Week, website= NYCgo, location=New York City * Culture of New York City Recurring events established in 1992