Dallas Restaurant Week: survival strategies

by Teresa Gubbins

KRLD Restaurant week

Click here for a list of 1-week participants Click here for a list of 2-week participants Click here for a list of 3-week participants

The annual endurance test known as Restaurant Week is upon us, officially starting today and lasting one to three weeks, depending on the proclivity of the restaurateur, when scads of budget-minded diners descend upon approximately 130 restaurants in search of a little something for nothing, all in the name of charity.

The original "week" has ballooned into a three-week marathon, and this year it got even fatter with a "preview weekend" that just elapsed. Meanwhile, caught up in the frenzy, some restaurants such as III Forks stretch the concept into the first week of September.

At its best, customers get a three-course meal at a high-end restaurant (the most expensive places are always the first to sell out) for $35, while the restaurants get a possible, though not necessarily profitable, burst of business during the traditionally slow month of August. Chipping away at the profit margin further, restaurants also pay a $895 "participation fee."

"Unfortunately, the city makes you feel guilty if you don't participate, so you're damned if you do and damned if you don't," said one restaurant staffer who asked not to be named.

Restaurants take different approaches to the madness, with some limiting the number of tables or hours. No one takes time off; staffers at higher-priced restaurants can count on their income being reduced. Some restaurants simply weather the guilt trip and avoid it altogether.

Waiter, there's a fly in my soup.

"We already do an awful lot for charity, we've always been involved in our 12 years with churches and schools, and we contribute to the [Restaurant Week recipient] North Texas Food Bank in other ways," said an employee at Sevy's.

Others tackle Restaurant Week by observing some anxiety-reducing strategies such as:

Rely on staples. Villa-O signed on for the three-week extended version and did the preview weekend, too. "It helps us a little bit, but not as much as a place like Abacus," said a staffer. "We'll probably see an increase of about 5%, especially during the week." They incorporate items from the regular menu to minimize confusion.

Concentrate on off-hours. Kenny's Wood Fired Grill shifts its Reservation Week reservations to the early hours. "We push it towards 6:30 to 8 p.m.," said a staffer. "It depends on what night you want to do it, with a little more flexibility on quiet nights. But we are limiting it a little bit so we can still have room for walk-ins."

Go whole hog. One of the most sought after places is Fearing's at the Ritz Carlton. They limit their participation to the one-week time-span from August 17-23, and were sold out within 24 hours of open reservations. On a typical Monday night, said a staffer, the restaurant might see 30 to 50 reservations; on this Monday night, they'll cap out at 262. The restaurant is taken over by Restaurant Weekies. Any walk-ins who want to order from the regular menu are escorted to the hotel's Live Oak bar.

Organize seatings. Craft Dallas is another one where getting a table is so prized that the restaurant ends up giving itself over to Restaurant Week entirely. "We do it for two weeks and during that time, we operate a little differently," explained a staffer. "It's more like three seatings. There's only a certain number of tables available. Everybody that's coming is in Restaurant Week. But we are in a hotel so we do have to have a non-restaurant-week component. We just have a smaller menu with some of our regular items for our hotel guests."

Open early. Nobu, which runs the Restaurant Week menu for two weeks, from August 17-30, opens early during that time, starting seating at 5:30 p.m. instead of their usual 6 p.m. "We are full full full, especially on the first weekend, when we have 322 reservations on Friday night and 300 on Saturday, when a typical Friday would be more like 200 reservations," said a staffer. Their approach to the menu is simply to go with their most popular items, the ones that most people order.

Streamline menu offerings. Abacus, also on the top of many lists, gears itself entirely to Restaurant Week during the two-week span from August 17-30 that it commits. Facing 450 covers per night, the kitchen streamlines its menu to facilitate efficiency. Dessert is a sampler of mini-desserts that can be shared by two, with Valrhona milk chocolate pudding, banana cake with chile-spiced toffee rum sauce, Key lime cheesecake napoleon, and a candied orange- and lemon-peel scone. "No ice cream, which is not optimal, but you don't want to take the chance that it will melt," says pastry chef Rick Griggs.

Limit the time frame. III Forks just can't get enough and is extending its Restaurant Week activity through the month until September 6. They keep it manageable by limiting the times of the reservation: "We offer it from 5-to-6:30 p.m., and then 8-p.m.-and-later, so basically it pads the slow time," said a staffer. "That way we can respect our regular customers." The 6:30 p.m. time slot sold out the fastest, but despair not, as there are still tables open at 5 p.m.