If you want people to eat at your restaurant, why not have them pick the menu? That was the idea behind the new fall menu debuting tonight at Randolph's Restaurant and Bar at the Warwick Denver Hotel.
"We thought the people who came to select the menu would also be the people who come back to order from it," explains Danielle Bickelmann, spokeswoman for Randolph's.
At the October 1 "Choose Our Menu" event at Randolph's, diners paid $20.09 to taste eighteen possible menu items, including three soups and three salads, as well as scallops, chicken, Colorado lamb and sorbets. "Usually when we create new menus, we put specials on current menus and see how they fare," Bickelmann says. "So, we wanted to take it a step further and have an event around what people would like to see on the new menu."
Diners voted for their favorites to appear on the fall menu. Some of the winners: butternut squash bisque, seared scallops with roast cauliflower risotto and hazelnut brown butter, and spice crusted lamb with creamy polenta and cucumber yogurt sauce, as well as an apple cider sorbet.
"It wasn't even close with the butternut squash bisque," Bickelmann says. "It won in a landslide."
Allowing the diners to choose the menu was a first for Randolph's -- but based on the success of the event, the restaurant may repeat the event next season, when it rolls out its next menu. "The event went great and it is a fun way for us to put the menu together," adds Bickelann. "We will definitely do it again."
Randolph's is located at 1776 Grant Street; for reservations, call 303-318-7272.
