Restaurant Week Serves Up No Washington Heights Eateries Again

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — After being left out of NYC Restaurant Week earlier this year, there are again no Washington Heights restaurants participating in the first rounds of the expanded five-week event.

Despite outreach by NYC & Company, the organizers of the event, many of the local restaurant owners didn't think it was beneficial enough to go through the process of changing prices to the $21, $39, or $125 lunch and dinner options that go along with Restaurant Week, Jeff Garcia, the President of the Latino Restaurant Association, told Patch.

Citywide, there are more than 500 restaurants participating in the first round of the expanded NYC Restaurant Week this summer – 412 of them are in Manhattan.

There are 30 participating eateries on the Upper West Side, 23 in Hell's Kitchen and 23 in Harlem.

And zero are in Washington Heights.

Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed Monday that NYC Restaurant Week, which operated only for takeout for its run earlier this year, will return this summer with five weeks of discounted meals. The summer restaurant week will last from July 19 until Aug. 22. Reservations opened on Monday.

In the first couple weeks of that January run, not a single restaurant in Washington Heights or Inwood — neighborhoods with more than 200,000 residents and dozens, if not hundreds of eateries — made it to the list.

At the time, it left residents, restaurant owners, and local politicians scratching their heads about the amount of outreach being done toward Northern Manhattan about the initiative.

• Read More: NYC Restaurant Week Leaves Uptown Manhattan Off The Menu

There were 11 eateries from Washington Heights that eventually signed up to participate in later rounds of the winter Restaurant Week.

Restaurants aren't selected by any sort of governing body. Instead, restaurant owners have to sign their own eateries up to take part in the week.

A Different Story For Uptown And The Summer Restaurant Week

NYC & Company did make a concerted outreach effort to Washington Heights this summer. It provided a Spanish version of the registration flyer for Restaurant Week and offered pre-recorded sessions in Spanish on how to register and what it means to participate, according to a spokesperson from NYC & Company.

The spokesperson also told Patch that the company reached out directly to the NY Latino Restaurant Association, worked with the Washington Heights Business Improvement District and the Chair of Community Board 12 to promote NYC Restaurant Week registration.

"I guess at some point we can sit down and make more specific plans for certain areas (neighborhoods), not just a broad platform," Garcia said.

If you search Washington Heights on the official finder for participating restaurants, the eatery Tannat comes up as being in the neighborhood. However, Tannat is located at 4736 Broadway, which is in the Inwood/Fort George area.

There are four other participating eateries in Inwood for the summer version of Restaurant Week:

• II Sole
• Sa'tacos
• Buunni Inwood
• Pat'e Palo

The spokesperson from NYC & Company said that Terravita in Washington Heights isn't participating in the first weeks of Restaurant Week but has signed up for weeks three and four.

Restaurant owners can sign up until July 15 — here.