Revamped Restaurant Week feeds Sussex homebound

This year's inaugural Coastal Delaware Restaurant Week was an all-around success! For the first time ever, restaurants on Coastal Highway, in Dewey Beach, Lewes, Bethany Beach and surrounding areas were able to join the downtown Rehoboth restaurants in offering special prix fixe menus to show off their best cuisine at predictable prices.

The new event was a collaboration between Dennis Forney and Chris Rausch of Cape Gazette and Bob Yesbek of RehobothFoodie.com. Additional sponsorship was generously provided by Jack Lingo Realtor. Restaurants were provided with a comprehensive promotion package that included a custom-designed website - complete with Restaurant Week menus; print promotion, and radio promotion on several stations including the weekly Sip & Bite with the Rehoboth Foodie radio show. Extensive social media exposure that included contests and prizes created a hungry buzz as the big week approached.

The restaurants were tasked with creating great menus with prices set at $25, $35, $45 or some combination thereof. The restaurants that provided special menus and actively promoted them to their guests couldn't have been happier. "We extended restaurant week through the weekend," said Keith Fitzgerald, co-owner of Back Porch Café. "People even returned the following week looking for the specials." 1776 Steakhouse co-owner Tom Holmes said, "Restaurant Week was a great success. We weren't ready for it to be so busy! It was well done and good for the region."

A portion of the moderate costs to the participating restaurants for promotion included a donation to local Meals on Wheels Lewes-Rehoboth. Cape Gazette Sales Manager Chris Rausch said, "Seems to make sense that we include some of our homebound neighbors who couldn't be part of Restaurant Week."

When he accepted the Restaurant Week donation check, Meals on Wheels Lewes-Rehoboth Board President John Wolfle said that the $3,000 donation will pay for more than 600 meals. To put that into perspective, Meals on Wheels Lewes-Rehoboth delivers 110,000 meals annually, delivered daily by 115 volunteers driving a total of over 88,000 miles per year.

Looks like a great time was had by all, and our local Sussex seniors are all the better for it.