Why Restaurant Week Won't Die, Despite the Haters

It’s become fashionable to hate on restaurant week, that annual or semi-annual promotion in which eateries across a city offer multi-course dishes for a set price from a prix fixe menu. It’s called different things in different cities – there’s Dine in Brooklyn and San Francisco’s "Dine About Town" – but as constant as the fixed prices are the poisoned darts that both diners and restaurant staff shoot at the whole concept.

On paper, it looks like a win-win. Chefs get to shorten their menus to just a few dishes and make up for the lower price point with higher booze sales. Customers pay a fixed price (usually something like $20.12 for a three-course lunch and $33.12 for dinner) to sample a restaurant they might not have visited otherwise. But each year, the promotion receives a prix fixe menu of criticism: that some chefs cut corners with quality, ingredients and service; that it’s when the "amateur eaters" come out; and that the deal just isn’t that great.