NYC Restaurants Celebrate 30th Anniversary Of Restaurant Week Promotion Through August 21

New York City is celebrating the 30^th anniversary of Restaurant Week, featuring special deals for diners through August 21.

The promotion is being offered by over 650 restaurants across the city’s five boroughs; over 60 styles of cuisines are being offered in 85 neighborhoods.

Restaurants are offering specially priced meals on weekdays, and have the option to also do so on Sunday. They are offering either a two-course lunch or three-course dinner prix-fixe menu, priced at $30, $45 or $60, depending on the restaurant. Over 100 restaurants are also offering $30 bottles of wine to mark the anniversary.

Joe Baum—owner of Windows on the World, among other restaurants—and Tim Zagat, a lawyer who began a highly successful business in which diners rated restaurants they visited (long before social media existed) that was eventually sold to Google and is now owned by The Infatuation—created Restaurant Week when the Democratic National Convention took place in New York in the summer of 1992. Their goal was to entertain delegates to the convention and media covering it with three-course meals at some of the city’s finest restaurants priced at $19.92. Although they fully expected the promotion would be a money-loser, it actually stimulated business; it was eventually further expanded to a winter version and both seasons’ versions grew to longer than one week.

The concept has since been copied by other destinations in the United States and around the world.

Fifteen of the restaurants that kicked off the promotion in 1992 are participating again this year; these include Barbetta, Carmine’s on the Upper West Side, Dock’s Oyster Bar, Fraunces Tavern, Gage & Tollner, Gallagher’s Steak House, The Palm, Sardi’s, Shun Lee West, Sylvia’s, Traven on the Green, Tribeca Grill, the Russian Tea Room, Union Square Café and Victor’s Café.

Fred Dixon, president and chief executive of NYC & Company, New York City’s destination marketing organization, said, “We are proud to celebrate 30 years of NYC Restaurant Week, marking three decades of exceptional deals to diners across the five boroughs. To continue celebrating the city’s world-class dining scene, we are pleased to announce the launch of Savor NYC, a year-long culinary initiative that will spotlight the culinary community across the city’s multi-cultural neighborhoods encouraging visitors to go deeper and explore more.”