In 2005, Cornell University issued a study on why up-and-coming restaurants are notoriously prone to fail. The findings indicated that businesses struggle to communicate with customers, match product and value and set themselves apart.

Syracuse restaurants face these and other risk factors, like the challenges of heavy, late winters and consumers who aren’t willing to bear the cold to dine out. Knowing that February can be a bad time for businesses, the Downtown Committee of Syracuse organized an event to combat the early-year slump in one celebratory week.

Downtown Dining Week concluded its tenth annual run on Saturday. It promotes some of the most popular spots in metropolitan Syracuse, including Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Pastabilities and Empire Brewing Company.

Lisa Romeo, the director of communications of the Downtown Committee of Syracuse, said the event has grown with the city’s interest in fine dining. Starting with 17 restaurants during the first year, Dining Week had its highest involvement yet with 25 restaurants this year.

“When the event first started, it was a little bit difficult to first get people signed on that weren’t as familiar with the event and what it would entail,” she said. “But now, Dining Week has become such an established promotion that everyone’s familiar with it and restaurants are asking us how they can participate in the next dining week.”

The Downtown Committee has been organizing the event since 2004, approaching businesses to participate and listening to feedback from diners.

“There are a lot of restaurants that have a really strong commitment to downtown Syracuse and to helping promote it as a destination,” she said. “There’s no other variety like it in the region.”

Max Chutinthranond, owner and executive chef at Lemon Grass, has participated in Dining Week since its first year. Although he was a bit skeptical at first, he said he found the yearly promotion boosted sales, bringing in new and regular customers alike.

“February’s always been a bad month. Nobody wants to come out and everybody’s still paying the bills from Christmas,” Chutinthranond said. “I’ve been here in business for 25 years. It always happens that way. That’s how Dining Week came about.”

This year, Lemon Grass offered four different menu options with discounts. Although the influx of customers helps business, Chutinthranond said doing what he estimates to be three times as much work as usual can challenge the restaurant’s staff.

“We are professionals, though. We’ve done this for years,” he said. “But the staff that are working here, the labor costs and the food costs are humongous to maintain this crowd.”

Chutinthranond added that usually staff hours must be “trimmed down by hundreds of hours” because there are less customers.

Phoebe’s Restaurant and Coffee Lounge was not offered a Downtown Dining Week designation because it’s not located downtown. But that didn’t stop the restaurant’s management from “branching off,” hosting coinciding specials of its own throughout the week.

Angie Knox, general manager of Phoebe’s, took on the spirit of Dining Week by promoting the restaurant through social media and giving out discounts for an appetizer, entrée and dessert. Her unofficial involvement in the event was, to Knox’s knowledge, the first time a restaurant not based in the downtown area had done so.

“(The best part of this week was) hopefully gaining some new faces and friends out of it,” she said. “Even though we didn’t get the advertisement, we did a lot on Facebook and Twitter that hopefully made people aware that we are not as expensive as people may think we are.”

Even with the effort it requires, restaurant owners agree that Downtown Dining Week is ultimately an effective tool to keep many of Cornell’s ‘elements of failure’ at bay.

“This month goes in like a lion, but out like a lamb,” Chutinthranond said. “Even though we have to work harder and put on more hours, everyone ends up happy.”

Published on March 5, 2014 at 3:20 am