KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Kalamazoo Downtown Restaurant Week will kick off on Friday for 10 total days of dining.
The event will highlight new and favorite foods along with specialty drinks.
LFG Gaming Bar is one of the downtown restaurants participating in restaurant week. Its menu will feature seven dishes and four drinks.
"We're just starting to get a little bit of our prep done. We definitely ordered a lot more supplies than we normally did," said LFG Gaming Bar Owner Amy Spalsbury.
It's the first Kalamazoo Downtown Restaurant Week in 16 months with no pandemic restrictions, and the eight participating restaurants are preparing for a big crowd.
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"We are going to take as many people as we can. Right now we can seat about 60 to 70 people with the patio, and then also in our other room as well and the bar too," said Spalsbury.
"We're really excited to be able to offer the outdoor dining, indoor dining and really offer all the options that people have come to expect from Restaurant Week that we've had altered over the last year and a half," said Kalamazoo Downtown Partnership Communications and Marketing Manager Meghan Behymer.
Kalamazoo Downtown Restaurant Weeks kicks off at eight local restaurants starting tomorrow. @FOX17
— Lauren Kummer (@LaurenKummerTV) July 22, 2021
Each establishment will feature menu items at $10, $25 and $35 price points as well as specialty cocktails. Here are the participating restaurants: pic.twitter.com/G8EpuQpR1x
While the Kalamazoo Downtown Partnership said there are fewer participating restaurants than normal, they had to keep in mind that many establishments are having a harder time with staffing.
"When we started planning, there were definitely concerns about that and what it looks like. As we went through planning, really the benefits of bringing people downtown and continuing to support dining out outweighed the concerns with staffing. We’re really hoping to have a great week and ask the community to be patient with those concerns in mind," said Behymer.
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Each participating restaurant will feature special menu items at prices ranging from $10 to $35, as well as special cocktails created for a drink competition hosted by Green Door Distilling Company.
LFG Gaming Bar plans to serve a blueberry vodka concoction as well as favorite food items from their menu.
"A lot of our food is either locally sourced or from farmers, and so we try our best. We also make a lot of this stuff from scratch too. It's just kind of trying to promote out to the people that haven't been here before that it's not just like regular bar food," said Spalsbury.
Restaurant Week begins Friday, July 23 and runs until Sunday, Aug. 1.
Click here for participating restaurants, menu items and hours.
