Nearly 600 eateries have signed up for NYC Restaurant Week - twice the normal number - all offering great deals, including $20.21 lunches and dinners in all five boroughs.
This year, it’s called NYC Restaurant Week To Go, and every participating restaurant offers a $20.21 takeout or delivery meal for an entree and at least one side dish.
MasterCard is sponsoring the event. Register your card to get a $10 rebate for all orders over $20.21 on orders and delivered by GrubHub, BentoBox, Bbot and Tock.
Remember which meal delivery companies are NOT participating in this program to help the NYC restaurant industry, so you can avoid them in the future.
You can help restaurants even more by ordering directly, and picking up your order yourself, so restaurants avoid the third-party delivery charge.
Participating restaurants including Babbo, Blue Smoke, Red Rooster, Pastis, Quality Eats, Mercer Kitchen and Bar Boulud are offering lunch or dinner with one side dish for $20.21.
The list includes including hot spots like Michael Stillman’s steakhouse Quality Eats and Melba Wilson’s Harlem favorite Melba’s.
See also
Best NYC Ramen restaurants
NYC All-You-Can-Eat Sushi Deals
Best NYC Restaurants for Lobster
The full list of participating NYC Restaurant Week To Go, locations is online where you can search by location or type of food, Black-owned, date night, etc.
The official program runs from January 25 to February 1, although each restaurant has the option of extending the promotion another week, through February 7. It’s a great opportunity to try a new restaurant or revisit an old favorite.
You’ll eat well, eat cheap, and help the NYC restaurant industry, which has been so hard-pressed in the last 12 months.
NYC Restaurant Week To Go is the pandemic version of the city’s decades-old, twice-a-year Restaurant Week, in January/February and in July/August. It was started nearly 30 years ago as a way to boost business in the normally quiet days after the Christmas holidays and during the summer doldrums.
Its popularity has led to cities from Albuquerque to Zagreb creating their own local Restaurant Weeks.
NYC Restaurant Week to Go is positioned to be the biggest NYC Restaurant Week in history, the New York Post reports.
Partly, that’s because organizer NYC & Company - the city’s tourism agency - waived fees to participate in the semi-annual program.
Restaurants in Manhattan normally pay $2,800 while eateries in the outer boroughs typically pay $1,500 to participate, which limits participation to well-established restaurants, not small family-owned neighborhood eateries.
With 571 restaurants signed up to participate in this month’s program, it’s far larger than the last highest record of 391 participating restaurants in the summer of 2017.
According to NY Eater, much of the influx of new restaurants comes from boroughs outside of Manhattan. Last year, only 17 restaurants outside of Manhattan participated in the city’s program, according to the Post.
This year, 184 restaurants outside of Manhattan, including 78 in Brooklyn, 45 in Queens, 17 in the Bronx, and 19 in Staten Island.
What do you think about this? We welcome your comments.