Wheeling Restaurant Week Kicks Off
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WHEELING – The menus of many local eateries will have added specials and discounts from today until March 2 as part of the celebration of local restaurants.
This year marks the return of Wheeling Restaurant Week after the event has been on hiatus since 2020.
Due to the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns, what was supposed to be a week-long celebration of local restaurants during the event's first rendition had to pivot to a takeout-only affair.
"The first time we tried this it was very hectic," described Regional Economic Development Partnership Program Development Manager Valerie Piko, one of the organizers of this year's event. "No one knew what to do, so it was very difficult."
What inspired the event's return was the Conquer the Cones initiative. Participants in that contest -- started to help eateries downtown during the Streetscape work -- can be entered into a drawing to win $1,000 courtesy of Panhandle Cleaning & Restoration and other sponsors by dining at six of 13 participating downtown restaurants.
"We just wanted to give people another excuse to come downtown and try out restaurants," said Wheeling Heritage Program Manager Alex Panas. "We also want people to check out all the other restaurants in Wheeling, so there is a dual purpose here."
This year, Wheeling Heritage and RED began gearing up for the event months in advance to ensure the celebration faced no hiccups. The bulk of the work has been communicating with restaurant owners and staff to get the businesses signed up for the event.
"Across our organizations, we have built pretty strong relationships with many local businesses and restaurants throughout town," said Piko. "In the early stages, we kind of leaned on some of the personal connections that we already have to these business owners and encouraged them to submit their information. Then, we’ve shared what each restaurant has planned through social media to help get the word out to everyone across town."
To see the list of restaurants participating expand beyond downtown Wheeling is exciting for Panas, noting Oglebay Resort and the Wheeling Country Club are taking part this year.
"One of the specials that the Wheeling Country Club is offering uses recipes that were taken from the former Fort Henry Club menu, so there are some neat nods to different areas in Wheeling outside of individual restaurants that are participating, which is cool to see," she added.
To provide restaurants the opportunity to showcase their "culinary talent and uniqueness" is another reason Panas wanted to bring the event back. Piko also was impressed by the culinary skills local restaurateurs demonstrated while creating special menus or dishes.
Vagabond Kitchen owner Matt Welsch said how he and head chef Dave Becker collaborated to devise their special menu item for the event. Since Welsch had recently picked up Grow Ohio Valley's community cookbook, they decided to serve a dish inspired by it.
"We thought we should do something fun and interesting for Restaurant Week that fits in with our version of high-end Appalachian comfort food," he said.
The two came up with a baked steak with mushroom brown gravy served over ratatouille and fired polenta that will be available until next Saturday.
Other restaurants in the area are putting their unique spins on West Virginia cuisines or adding special menu items during the week. Sarah's on Main will be offering its take on a pepperoni roll, and Coleman's Fish Market will be offering a Jebbia's tomato stuffed with tuna salad.
The timing of when the event was brought back was also strategic, noted Panas, who explained that after Valentine's Day, the winter can be a very slow time for restaurants.