Pork Ragu at Taverna Novo, $25 with app and dessert on the 2022 Saratoga Restaurant Week menu at Taverna Novo. Photo credit: Hinna L. on Yelp.
Being obsessively cheap, we perk up when our local restaurant week rolls round, hoping for some real bargains and creative menu design that motivates us to try someplace new. For 2022 Saratoga Restaurant Week runs from November 7-13; lunches are $15 (they were $5 and $10 last time we wrote about this in 2019) and dinners are $25 and $35.
I’m definitely going to lunch at the Kaffee Haus, which will give me a Reubenator sandwich and a cup of gulash with a soda for $15 when these items add up to well over $20 on the regular menu. Will probably skip the Hideaway, which for $15 gives me a Reuben which is $14 on the regular menu and throws in a salad or dessert. Will also skip a couple of places that agreed to participate in the promotion but didn’t bother to put up a menu; what’s up with that?
For my $25 dinner I’m surely headed to Taverna Novo, which will serve me a small Caesar salad or pumpkin ravioli, an entrée of pork ragu, and a death by chocolate brownie for less than the entrée sells for on its own. And will avoid Panza’s, which marks up 3 of its regular entrees for a $35 menu and makes up for it with a soup or salad to start and bread pudding for dessert.
In fact, a rule of thumb for restaurant weeks might be that the entire promotional menu should cost less than its entree when purchased on the regular menu; e.g. the Taverna Novo promo is giving us a $28 entrée for $25 with extras. It also helps if the restaurant offers a special that is not on the regular menu (a Cuban sandwich at Hideaway, pumpkin ravioli at Taverna Novo) which will draw back regular customers and also make price comparisons against the regular menu more difficult.
Restaurants have had a hard time with the pandemic and subsequent staffing shortages, though the staffing situation seems to be more manageable at local places now that the tourist season is over. But the restaurant business depends on attracting new customers and turning them into repeat customers, and a restaurant week is a golden opportunity to do that. It’s not a time to pinch pennies.
I’m not alone in this philosophy; our local food curmudgeon Steve Barnes put up a long Facebook rant comparing Panza’s offering to another place down the road which serves the same menu every day at a little more than half the price. (We originally linked to the post but Facebook has blocked access for too many redirects, sorry.)
