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Eat ADK Week kicks off today with local restaurants

EAT ADK Restaurant Week Committee Chairwoman Kelsey Torrance-Cassidy speaks at Wednesday evening’s launch event at Saratoga Olive Oil Company in Lake Placid for the second annual restaurant week event, which spans today through next Thursday and includes 37 restaurants across five Tri-Lakes communities. (Enterprise photo — Antonio Olivero)

LAKE PLACID — If you like a particular food sample at the supermarket, you may buy that brand more often. That’s the concept behind EAT ADK Restaurant Week, a regional celebration of food that starts today and ends a week later.

“You want to get them hooked,” said EAT ADK Committee Chairwoman Kelsey Torrance-Cassidy of Lake Placid.

Thirty-seven restaurants from six communities will participate in the event, offering three-course menus — an appetizer, entree and dessert — at fixed price points.

For the diner, it’s about getting a good bargain on great food and service.

For the restaurant, it’s about getting repeat year-round business from the local customer base, which is the target audience for EAT ADK Restaurant Week.

Of course, anyone — local or visitor — can take advantage of the bargain menus.

“We’re looking to get people down the road,” said Rob Kane Jr., owner and general manager of Great Adirondack Steak and Seafood in Lake Placid, which is participating in the event for the second year. “It gives people the opportunity to see our specialities. If they like what we have here, they’ll come back.”

EAT ADK Restaurant Week was not designed to make restaurants a lot of money during the event. Instead, the ultimate goal is to increase the restaurants’ profits throughout the year.

That’s one of the lessons EAT ADK Restaurant Week organizers were teaching restaurant operators this year as part of their educational process. Those lessons were packaged into two cartoon-style videos on YouTube.

“Did you know that repeat customers spend 33 percent more money than first-time customers?” the first video stated. “On top of that, 80 percent of businesses’ future profits will come from existing customers.”

During the inaugural event, organizers and the participating establishments learned a lot about how to give customers delicious bargains while still making some money. The committee took those lessons and came up with helpful tips to improve the experience for restaurants and customers. Hence the videos.

“Last year, we noticed a few restaurants were serving full-sized appetizers, entrees and desserts,” the second video states. “You need to think strategically with your menus. It doesn’t have to be a complicated math problem, but you should think about the numbers.”

One tip was to attract more EAT ADK customers during this “dead” time of the year by lowering their menu prices for this one-week event. The best way to do that, without breaking the bank, was to serve smaller portions for each course.

For example, a restaurant that usually sells a 14-ounce steak as an entree may offer a $20 meal that is a total of 14 ounces over the three courses: a 2-ounce cheese course, 10-ounce steak and 2-ounce slice of pie.

Last year, the fixed price points were $15, $25, $35 and $55. This year, the menus are priced at $15, $20 or $30.

At Wednesday night’s launch event at Saratoga Olive Oil Co. in Lake Placid, Torrance-Cassidy said the decision to change the price points was not an easy decision, rather one that took several months of analysis. The EAT ADK committee realized there was a gap between customers desiring the $15 and $25 meals. She described it as “trying to decide what isn’t going to gouge your restaurant but still make for a good deal.”

“The committee has two markets,” Torrance-Cassidy said, “restaurants and customers. And we needed to find something fair to both markets, so the restaurants want to continue to participate and customers continue to want to come out.

“Last year,” she continued, “we just felt that a lot of people at the price ranges where they were the restaurants were pushed into a more pricey category, which made it less of a value to the customer.”

Customers typically have three choices each for the appetizer, entree and dessert. For example, the Pourman’s Tap House in Wilmington is offering a $15 menu with the following choices: nachos, traditional poutine, or Caesar salad for appetizer; Margherita flatbread, three-cheese mac ‘n’ cheese or a veggie burger for entree; and s’more lava cake, chocolate chip cookie pie or cheesecake for dessert.

In 2016, EAT ADK Restaurant Week debuted with 25 restaurants in Lake Placid. The original idea was to slowly grow the event to include as many parts of the Adirondack Park as possible. This year, organizers have delivered on that promise and attracted 37 restaurants from six communities.

Another lesson organizers learned from the first year was, “Do not compete with existing holidays.” In 2016, although May 13-22 was technically part of the shoulder season — a slower time of the year between the busy winter and summer tourism months — and before Memorial Day, EAT ADK Restaurant Week coincided with Victoria Day, a popular Canadian holiday that attracts tourists to the Adirondacks. Therefore, the event is being held earlier this year.

And led by local wine shop manager and bartender Tim Robinson, EAT ADK expanded its social media presence this year by singularly highlighting individual restaurants taking part. Over recent weeks Robinson has featured a different business daily by showcasing photos on Instagram, Facebook and other social mediums of food and drink served at the establishments. As of this morning, the EAT ADK Instagram account has posted 232 times and gained 908 followers.

As the general manager at Terry Robard’s Wine & Spirits while also working as a bartender at Top of the Park and Taverna, Robinson has taken in the restaurant week preparation from several vantage points. The wine shop will offer a two-hour educational wine tasting seminar this Saturday, while Top of the Park will offer a $20 meal.

And in its rookie attempt at restaurant week, Tavera will offer a $30 meal featuring tastes of the restaurant’s hallmark dishes, such as a choice of an appetizer of house duck sausage stuffed risotto balls. Robinson and owner Louis Iakovidis hope this approach will appeal to new audience members in the way Torrance-Cassidy speaks of, even if diners are looking to be frugal and go half-and-half on dinner.

“For Taverna, it’s just a matter of gaining that attention because he’s a new restaurant,” Robinson said. “Once people come in there and try the different things and see the menu they are going to come back.”

Participating restaurants are as follows, sorted by location:

¯Lake Placid: Aki Sushi & Japanese Restaurant, Back Alley Bistro, Big Slide Brewery & Public House, Caffe Rustica, Delta Blue, Desperados, Eleanor’s Pasta Kitchen, Fireside Steak House, Generations Tap & Grill, Great Adirondack Steak and Seafood, Kanu, Lake Placid Pub & Brewery, Liquids and Solids at the Handlebar, Lisa G’s, Mis Amigos, Redneck Bistro, Taverna, The Cottage, The ‘Dack Shack, The Dancing Bears Restaurant, The Interlaken Inn, Top of the Park, Wiseguys Sports Bar and Grill, Wyatt’s

¯ Tupper Lake: Amado Bakery & Bistro, Big Tupper Brewing, P-2’s Irish Pub, The Marketplace Pub & Deli, Well Dressed Food

¯ Saranac Lake: Bitters & Bones, Blue Moon Cafe, Casa Del Sol, Fiddlehead Bistro, Lake View Deli, Left Bank Cafe, Nonna Fina

¯ Lake Clear: Hohmeyer’s Lake Clear Lodge

¯ Wilmington: Pourman’s Tap House

Several additional restaurants are offering lunch specials throughout the week, including SubAlpine Coffee in Keene Valley.

Many restaurants, other businesses and organizations will host special events related to food. For instance, the Palace Theatre in Lake Placid and State Theater in Tupper Lake will offer “Dinner and a Movie” each day of Restaurant Week, in which EAT ADK diners can pick up $5 movie passes from participating restaurants. Other restaurants will host themed events related to different kinds food and drink, or will have live music and/or dancing for diners to enjoy. Events from Saranac Lake’s annual Daffest are also part of the EAT ADK schedule.

Some hotels will offer special packages to people looking to enjoy the event.

Paul Smith’s College has provided significant support to the event. The idea for Restaurant Week originated out of a class led by assistant professor Kelly Cerialo. Her students are organizing the retail and hospitality components of the event.

Presenting sponsors are the Lake Placid Business Association and Paul Smith’s College. Additional sponsors include the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, the Lake Placid News, Renzi Food Services, WSLP, ROOST, Saratoga Olive Oil Co., Coca-Cola and 99.9 The Buzz.

A complete schedule and set of menus were published in a special section in the Enterprise Wednesday as well as this week’s Lake Placid News. They’re also online at www.eatadk.com.

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