Denver Restaurant Week has a record-breaking year

If you booked a table to cash in on the $52.80 prix fixe deals offered during Denver Restaurant Week (or, as TAG's chef de cuisine, Jensen Cummings, more accurately put it, "Denver Restaurant Half-Month"), you helped create a banner year for the event. According to Visit Denver, the seven-year-old citywide...

By Laura Shunk

May 25, 2011

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If you booked a table to cash in on the $52.80 prix fixe deals offered during Denver Restaurant Week (or, as TAG's chef de cuisine, Jensen Cummings, more accurately put it, "Denver Restaurant Half-Month"), you helped create a banner year for the event. According to Visit Denver, the seven-year-old citywide feast broke all records in 2011, with 303 restaurants serving up 360,480 meals between February 25 and March 11, up 7 percent from last year, when 282 restaurants served 335,580 meals.

The organization also adds that the 300-plus participating eateries made Denver Restaurant Week the largest restaurant week in the nation (though, the New York Times says that New York's restaurant week this year will include more than 300 spots... so, uh, that metropolis may retake the lead).

And no wonder everyone was exhausted by March 11: Our very non-scientific breakdown of the feeding frenzy suggests that each restaurant served almost 1,200 meals during the course of two weeks, or 85 meals a night for fourteen days straight.

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Laura Shunk was Westword's restaurant critic from 2010 to 2012; she's also been food editor at the Village Voice and a dining columnist in Beijing. Her toughest assignment had her drinking ten martinis and eating ten Caesar salads over the course of 48 hours. She still drinks martinis, but remains lukewarm on Caesar salads.

Contact: Laura Shunk

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