Houston Restaurant Weeks begins this weekend, Aug. 1 thru Sept. 7 with over 100 participating restaurants + 40 first timers, both new and some old favorites that have joined the flock!
What is Houston Restaurant Weeks and What Makes it So Special?
For those of you that have never partaken in this city-wide food fest, there are several reasons that you should dive in this summer. The reasons are simple: it’s a fun, effortless way to to get a multi-course meal at either one of your favorites that you haven’t been to in a while or one of the newbies that you’ve never tried but have been wanting to…all at a reasonable fixed price from their special menus. The HRW menus are unique to that time period of restaurants that are a great melting pot of diversity that’s aim is to get diners out of the heat and into their restaurants. These menus are usually a great cross-section of what the restaurant is all about…you can get the ‘flavor’ and/or style of the restaurants cuisine. Most importantly, it is a great way to give to an amazing cause which is the feeding of our area’s hungry, as donations from each restaurant are given to the Houston Food Bank, America’s largest food bank.
About the cause: fundraising efforts
HRW, founded in 2003 by Cleverly Stone, host of the Cleverly Stone Show, a food talk radio program on CBS Sports Radio 650/KIKK-AM, is the largest annual fundraiser for America’s largest food bank. The Food Bank which includes Harris, Galveston and Montgomery counties donates 100% of the proceeds to the hungry within our community and to date HRW has raised almost $6 million to fight hunger. Planned by volunteers, 100% of the funds raised go directly to feed the hungry in our community. It must be noted that participating restaurants donate to HFB based on quantity of brunches, lunches and dinners purchased during this time frame.
See Chart below…..taken from the HRW website illustrating clearly how the money is raised and distributed.
How it works for the Diners
The HRW website has a page devoted to How It Works, which explains in much greater detail how to take part in Houston Restaurant Weeks, but here are the cliff notes…
**Go to website and check menus (tab) **If rsvp’s needed, call or email restaurant (always tell restaurant that it is for HRW) * rsvp’s are recommended, some take walk-ins but there will be more of a wait time **If using OpenTable.com leave HRW message in comments section
Who are the participating restaurants?
As there are approximately200 participating restaurants, it is well worth your time to visit the HRW website, click on Home page and list on your right, and see for yourself. There is a great combination of old favorites mixed with some of both the newer restaurants in town or favorites that are just new to HRW. To see the list visit here.
The list is so enormous and has so many great choices but we have managed at MRG to call out a few of our favorites that are part of these weeks/month that we will be trying to get to……(in alphabetical order!)
Please note: these are some fave dishes that we found on the restaurants sites, you must click on the Menus tab on the HRW website to get exact listing of HRW food offerings. Also, you can click on the name of the restaurant in red below the photo to link directly to that restaurant’s site.
All images courtesy of the listed restaurants, please click on each name for links to their site or visit the Menu tab at HoustonRestaurantWeeks.com for exact HRW menu items.