By JAN McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
To launch the first Restaurant Week in Bowling Green, restaurant owners Tim Emmerich and Ardy Gonyer went door-to-door at local eateries. To be polite, the visits sometimes led to taste testing.
“We had ice cream three times one day,” Emmerich said. “We were persistent.”
The co-owners of Easystreet Cafe and Call of the Canyon Cafe signed up 17 food and beverage establishments to participate in the inaugural Bowling Green Restaurant Week scheduled for June 17-21.
“Everybody we talked to was very excited about it,” Gonyer said.
“Every other city has one,” Emmerich said of the weeklong celebration offering deals to patrons, while helping out a local charity. “We’re just trying to catch some of the magic.”
The designated week has three goals – draw deal-seeking diners to Bowling Green eating establishments, drum up business during slower summer week, and dedicate a portion of the profits to Brown Bag Food Project – which is also in the business of feeding people.
Both Gonyer and Emmerich have visited other cities to partake in the celebration of local eateries.
“If we’re going to Cleveland for Restaurant Week, maybe someone from Cleveland will come here for Restaurant Week,” Emmerich said.
Bowling Green’s pilot of the project has a “good line-up,” Gonyer said. Participating restaurants include:
- Easystreet Cafe
- Call of the Canyon Cafe
- Beckett’s Burger Bar
- SamB’s
- Trotter’s Tavern
- Dairy Queen
- Juniper Brewing Co.
- BG Burgers
- Brewing Green
- Jac & Do’s Pizza
- McDonald’s (both on South Main and East Wooster)
- Biggby Coffee
- CJ’s Sports Tavern at Al-Mar Lanes
- Kabob It
- The Row
- Kermits
- Arlyn’s Good Beer
Posters will be placed in windows of participating restaurants, and in other businesses to remind people of the five-day event.
Some establishments will offer deals on certain menu items, and all will donate 10% of the profits from those sales to the Brown Bag Food Project. Easystreet, for example, will offer three items (an appetizer, entree and dessert) for the cost of two items. Other specials include the Blizzards at Dairy Queen, breakfast sandwiches at Biggby, and seltzers at Arlyn’s.
“It’s a little grassroots economic development and charity,” Gonyer said.
The organizers fully expect to make this an annual event in Bowling Green.
“I expect next year, if it goes well, more will jump on board,” Emmerich said. This year, since all of the money is going through the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce, only establishments that are chamber members were included.
The week of June 17-21 was selected because Bowling Green tends to move at a different speed when most BGSU students are gone for the summer. Many businesses are affected by the population drop.
“Town moves a little bit slower in the summer,” Emmerich said. “Maybe people will eat somewhere they haven’t before. Maybe it will increase foot traffic, reminding people we are here.”
Planning the Restaurant Week reinforced the already existing camaraderie of local eatery owners, Gonyer said.
“We’re very excited. When one of us thrives, we all thrive. There’s plenty of business,” Gonyer said.
The week will begin with a kickoff party open to the public and food establishment workers on June 16, from 7-10 p.m. at Grumpy Dave’s Pub, featuring industry night discounts for restaurant employees.
On June 17, Bowling Green Mayor Mike Aspacher plans to issue a proclamation for Restaurant Week during the City Council meeting that evening.
The end of the week, June 21, is also the first Firefly Nights of the summer season.
Further information will be posted on the Visit BG Ohio website and the Facebook site for Restaurant Week BG OH.
