Masks? Check. Hand sanitizer? Check. Patio Dining? Check. Restaurant promotions? Check.
September is traditionally a slow month for restaurants, when summer vacations end and kids are back in school.
This year is even trickier, as most schoolchildren are learning via virtual classrooms and restaurants have already been dealing with more challenges over the past six months than they might in a lifetime.
What better way to entice diners back to restaurants than with special promotions.
This month, two alluring options are ready to tickle your taste buds: Newport Beach Restaurant Month, and Orange County Restaurant Week.
Newport Beach’s Dine Pass
Eat. Drink. Win. That’s the concept behind the inaugural Newport Beach Restaurant Month that takes place throughout the month at dozens of restaurants in Newport Beach.
Unlike Newport Beach Restaurant Week, normally held in mid-January with restaurants offering special prix fixe lunch and dinner menus, Restaurant Month adds a digital component to the mix.
To participate, visit the website VisitNewportBeach.com/Restaurant-Month and sign up for a Newport Beach Restaurant Month Dine Pass. The pass is instantly delivered via text and email, and is ready to use.
Use the Dine Pass to browse participating restaurants that offer either al fresco dining or takeout options. Arrive at the restaurant and click the “Check-In” button to redeem exclusive offers.
Each “Check-In” is an entry for daily giveaways and vacation stays in Newport Beach.
Restaurant Month was discussed at a special meeting of the Newport Beach Restaurant Association Board of Directors last June. The focus of the original plan was to hold a Summer Restaurant Month in August to drive spending and revenue to the city’s restaurants to assist with economic and financial COVID-19 recovery efforts.
Restaurant Month was postponed until September due to the state mandate issued in July to halt indoor dining and move everything outside.
Now that restaurants have al fresco options in place, Restaurant Month can proceed.
According to Doug McClain, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Newport Beach & Co. (the entity coordinating Restaurant Month), the Summer Restaurant Week is “a promotional campaign that will help drive attendance,” McClain said. “We created a web-based mobile app and award prizes daily and weekly to encourage visitors and residents to get out to all parts of our destination, to all restaurants in Newport Beach.”
The restaurant association plan is part of a larger one for all of Newport Beach, McClain said.
“It’s a comprehensive recovery campaign aimed at tourism and a local standpoint to drive visitation, as well as to get residents to spend money locally,” McClain explained.
Go to www.VisitNewportBeach.com/Restaurant-Month for an updated list of participating restaurants and to sign up for a Dine Pass.
Fall Restaurant Week Uncorked
The Orange County Restaurant Association coordinates an OC Restaurant Week every spring to shine a culinary spotlight on restaurants throughout Orange County. This year’s Restaurant Week was held March 8-14. That was the week that California started shutting down due to the coronavirus, and restaurants were forced to temporarily cease operations.
Now, the Restaurant Association has created a Fall Restaurant Week dubbed Restaurant Week Uncorked that runs Sept. 13 through 26—in essence, two weeks.
“Our local restaurants are facing some of the toughest times right now,” said Pamela Waitt, president of the OC Restaurant Association. “We’ve added a Fall Restaurant Week to encourage our communities to support their restaurants at this crucial time.
“This event has also been refocused to promote Family Meals, which we’ve seen as a popular to-go option for many households at this time,” she said.
One way or another, Waitt told me, “it will help bring business. Kids will be in school, and parents want to pick up meals. Hopefully it will be a good draw.”
As always, Restaurant Week includes great dine-in menus, but Waitt said there is an added focus on takeout, which “speaks to the current consumer trends and looks at how we, as a society, will adjust to the coming months with a new normal.”
So far, 75 restaurants are signed up to participate in Restaurant Week, with more to come. The Restaurant Week website allows diners to scroll a list of restaurants or look up options by price ($10 to $80), city, etc.
Among the participating restaurants is The Anaheim White House, where Chef Bruno Serato offers a four-course menu for $50 with a starter, salad, choice of five entrées, and dessert. Bruno has transformed his courtyard into a delightful al fresco dining experience. His cuisine, like the experience, is always memorable.
AnQi at South Coast Plaza has a $25 lunch menu and an $80 luxe dinner menu, both available for dine-in only on AnQi’s new patio. The dinner menu is particularly exquisite, but I still suggest ordering the famous garlic noodles off of the regular menu (see the Aug. 24 print edition of the Business Journal for more on AnQi).
Habana Restaurant at The Lab Anti-Mall in Costa Mesa celebrates its 25th anniversary with a $25 lunch menu that starts with a glass of bubbly and continues with a choice of starters, four options for entrées, and dessert. Dining is on the Habana patio, where I’ve enjoyed many a fabulous Cuban-inspired meal. They also have a $50 dinner menu. Both are available for dine-in only.
Cha Cha’s Latin Kitchen in Brea and Irvine each offer identical $15 lunch menus that are an impressive value (choice of soup or salad plus one of six entrées), plus a $30 dinner and $50 taco takeout kits.
The Anaheim Packing House’s not-so-secret speakeasy The Blind Rabbit has a simple yet intriguing $30 dinner menu for dine-in and takeout that includes a starter, one entrée (short rib mac and cheese with cavatappi, truffled bechamel sauce, and red wine reduction), dessert, and a choice of a daquiri or an old fashioned cocktail.
Those are just a sample of what’s available during OC Restaurant Week Uncorked.
Visit https://ocrestaurantweek.com for a complete list of restaurants and menus.
