Connections - Summer 2017 - 16
> /Win Week A Win for Restaurants and Their Customers BY MARY LOU JAY MIDSUMMER IS USUALLY a slow time for restaurants, but between July 17 and 23 about 100 Georgia restaurants did a brisk business. Those eating establishments were participating in Georgia Restaurant Week, hosted by the Georgia Restaurant Association (GRA) in partnership with Explore Georgia, the state's official tourism agency. GRA serves as the voice for advocacy, education and awareness for restaurants in Georgia, according to the association's CEO, Karen Bremer, CAE. "We make restaurants better for Georgians, and we make Georgia a better place for restaurants," she says. Georgia Restaurant Week serves both of those goals. It provides the public with special deals that enable them to try out new and unfamiliar restaurants or 16 > Summer 2017 to revisit old favorites. It gives restaurants the opportunity to attract new guests and perhaps convert them into long-term customers and to entice their regulars to come out and dine. "It's a great way to promote dining out and culinary tourism in Georgia," says Rachel Bell, GRA's director of marketing and communications. Encouraging Membership Georgia Restaurant Week started in 2015, when the Georgia Department of Economic Development, which was heavily promoting Georgia foods that year, requested GRA's assistance in setting up a statewide program. In its first year, Restaurant Week attracted 70 participating restaurants. In 2016 there were 100 restaurants, and GRA expects to top that number in 2017. Participation in Georgia Restaurant Week is free for GRA's 500-plus corporate members, who represent about 4,000 restaurants throughout the state. Non-members pay $295 to register; that also entitles them to a year's membership in the association. "Each year we have had a handful of new restaurants that have signed up. When they see the other benefits of membership in the association they continue to renew it," says Bell. As part of the registration, restaurants must donate two $50 gift cards that are used for promotional purposes. "We will use those with our media partners, we will do social media promotions, and Explore Georgia will help us pair the gift cards with hotel stays so that people can make destinations out of dining in Georgia restaurants," says Bell. During Georgia Restaurant Week, participating restaurants will offer prix-fixe dinner menu items priced at $15, $25 or $35 per person or per couple-the restaurant chooses its price point. The three-course prix-fixe dinner must include an appetizer or starter, entrée and dessert, but restaurants can add more food items if they choose. They may also offer their regular menu during this time and/or offer other special deals. Participating restaurants could also opt to take advantage of a new promotional scratch-off program this year. They contributed to a special pool of money used to cover the costs of scratch-off cards that
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