Get the elastic waistband ready! Four Hampton Roads cities are hosting restaurant weeks the final two weeks of January, featuring more than 100 local businesses.
Virginia Beach Restaurant Week begins Monday, January 16 and runs through January 22.
For the first time, the Virginia Beach Restaurant Association is including a theme — telling News 3 that pineapples will be featured in the decor, or on the menu, at all 53 participating restaurants; a record-breaking number, says Executive Director Martha Davenport. There's also a mascot: Winston, the six-month old French bulldog, who will be making the rounds to different restaurants throughout the week.
For Restaurant Week, businesses are offering a multi-course menu at a fixed rate; for example, $35 for a three-course dinner or $15 for a two-course lunch. The price structure is the same, Davenport says, despite inflation raising food costs.
“We did not increase our pricing for Restaurant Week," she told News 3. "Restaurants are being very creative in keeping with that price structure for meals and providing these wonderful dishes.”
One of the restaurants on the list is Atlantic on Pacific, which is always practicing creativity when it comes to food purchases.
"Every time we change [our menu], which is seasonally, we just adapt our menu to use more or less of things that are getting more expensive," said James Orlanda, assistant general manager and bar manager at Atlantic on Pacific.
On top of climbing food costs and staffing shortages, January is typically a slow month for restaurants, especially the tourist-reliant locations at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.
“A lot of people don’t seem to know us too well, but we love when the locals come to visit. We are fun. We have the most beautiful scenery right out of our windows," said Julie Reyes, Director of Operations at Hemingway's.
The restaurant inside the Holiday Inn Oceanside on Atlantic Ave. and 21st St. sits right on the boardwalk, with a view of the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. It's an easy selling point for tourists, but for the locals, Hemingway's is cooking up delicious dishes, like flat iron steak and seared scallops, to get people returning.
Virginia Beach Restaurant Week may feature the largest selection of restaurants, but three other Hampton Roads cities are jumping in with their own events: Downtown Norfolk Restaurant Week runs from January 15-22, Newport News Restaurant Week is from January 15-29 and Portsmouth Restaurant Week runs from January 21-28.
