The Village of Woodridge is celebrating its first annual Restaurant Week from Monday, Feb. 23 to March 1. The week will feature noteworthy food promotions and unique activities dedicated to the showcasing of local Woodridge restaurants. 17 restaurants across the village have committed to providing an unforgettable celebration of gourmet cuisine.
Having been originally proposed to the Woodridge community Restaurant Week has become filled with anticipation.
Woodridge Communications and Community Engagement Manager Jamie Kaczor has had a pivotal role in bringing the week to life. Her responsibilities for organizing the project include: reaching out to local restaurants, coordinating marketing materials and promoting the week to the greater Woodridge community.
Kaczor disclosed a statistic on the favorability of Restaurant Week among people in Woodridge.
“To gauge interest, the Village of Woodridge recently partnered with the Northern Illinois University Center for Governmental Studies to conduct a community survey. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with 90.3% of respondents expressing interest in participating in a Woodridge Restaurant Week,” said Kaczor.
Kaczor also explained where the idea for a restaurant week came from.
“The idea for a Woodridge Restaurant Week came from both the growing trend of such events in nearby towns and direct feedback from our community. Many neighboring areas have successfully hosted restaurant weeks, and these events have become a popular way to support and showcase local businesses,” said Kaczor.
Individual restaurants have provided creative and promotional offers for the week. Special discounts on food, prix fine menus, free dessert or appetizer items and even exclusive menu items will only be available throughout the week.
In addition to the restaurant offerings, the Village of Woodridge has pioneered a Restaurant Week Trolley Tour. The trolley tour will visit four restaurant locations which will each serve different types of meals and specialty beverages.
Kaczor revealed logistical details on the trolley tour.
“We are renting the trolleys for the Trolley Tour from Naperville Trolley & Tours. We’re excited about the potential for expanding Restaurant Week in the future if this first year is a success and there is strong interest from our community and local businesses. We appreciate the enthusiasm and look forward to seeing how this year unfolds,” Kaczor said.
Local business owner Ed Ranquist of the Gastropub Ike & Oak Brewing shared his excitement for Restaurant Week.
“I think that Restaurant Week is going to be promoted heavily to the Woodridge community. Hopefully, we’re able to get people who haven’t been to Ike & Oak before, or maybe people who came a couple of years ago and haven’t been back, and then get new regulars,” said Ranquist.
Ranquist shares his vision of what Restaurant Week could look like for Ike & Oak and other restaurants in the Seven Bridges area.
“Maybe there’s going to be people from the surrounding suburbs that, will say, ‘Oh, they got a great brewery over there, let’s go check that out. I saw it being advertised for Woodridge Restaurant Week.’ The goal of Restaurant Week, in my opinion, is to build some community amongst the Woodridge residents to experience their community and businesses that are doing great things,” Ranquist said.
Many participating restaurants such as Ike & Oak will feature special menu items for Restaurant Week. Ranquist spotlighted a special dinner item that Ike & Oak will serve exclusively during restaurant week.
“for Restaurant Week, we’re going to be doing, it’s going to be called the ‘Italian deli special.’ We’re chopping up all the ingredients that go on an Italian deli sandwich and putting it on that Detroit-style pizza. It’s going to have fresh lettuce, pepperoni sopra set, a sliced sopra set of salami, roasted red peppers, banana peppers and it’s gonna have a really nice with parmesan cheese drizzled over the top,“ Ranquist said.
Woodridge Mayor Gina Cunningham displayed her thoughts on what Restaurant Week means for Woodridge and its community.
“For me, it’s all about celebrating Woodridge, celebrating where we live, our community, our neighbors, our businesses and being able to go out and really enjoy our restaurants. To shop Woodridge, to go have fun, to meet new people, to ride a trolley going through Woodridge; It doesn’t happen every day, and it’s just really, to me a wonderful invitation to get to know maybe a little bit more about our community that we didn’t know before,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham reflected on how Woodridge has developed since its founding.
“One of the early statements made by our first mayor [Leon Werch], was that Woodridge was the type of place to build a dream on. Everybody moving to Woodridge and living in Woodridge really was building their dream here, whether it was a dream home, starting a family or building a business, Woodridge was just a perfect spot and everyone was really fortunate to have each other as neighbors,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham expanded upon how individuals can support Woodridge restaurants.
“Maybe invite friends to go to restaurants with you, or neighbors, and ask them ‘Hey it’s restaurant week. Have you ever tried whatever restaurant?’ Hopefully, it just gives us a chance to get more people going to our businesses with us,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham pointed out what makes Woodridge extraordinary.
“Our history is wonderful, even though we’re not as old as many communities around us. It is just this richness of our community that makes it great, “ Cunningham said.
