COLORADO SPRINGS — If you've been wanting to try out that local restaurant you've had your eyes on, or are craving something new to eat, you're in luck. It’s Restaurant Week in Colorado Springs. The week of deals on meals runs from Friday, April 22 to Sunday, May 1.
Restaurant Week has looked very different over the past two years because of the pandemic, so this year is a special one.
“It feels a lot more normal than it has for the last two years. It’s nice to get back into seeing these annual events like Restaurant Week,” said Tyler Sherman, the owner of Odyssey Gastropub in downtown Colorado Springs.
Sherman has owned Odyssey Gastropub for nearly eight years. He said they’ve participated in restaurant every year since then. This year, they’re offering a two-course tasting menu for $45 dollars.
“We love Restaurant Week. We participate every year and it's just a great way for us to be able to get out in front of people who might not know who we are, where we are, or what we have to offer,” said Sherman “This just gives everybody a taste of what the city has to offer and stuff we look forward to going through the summer.”
Sherman also said it worked out well for the restaurant, because they’re releasing a new menu next week and are featuring some of the new menu items during Restaurant Week.
More than 30 local restaurants are offering discounts, specials, BOGO’s or multi-course menus
Anju Korean Eats is also participating in its second Restaurant Week, and they have spicy pork tacos on special. The walk-up food stand is located inside of COATI, and it’s only the second year they’ve participated in restaurant week.
“Obviously the first year we were in the middle of a pandemic, so it was a little rough. now being in our second year, a lot of people have came out and supported us,” said Aspen Dantzler, a chef at Anju Korean Eats.
All of the restaurants have been through shutdowns, mask mandates, staffing shortages, and inflation in the past few years. But for both businesses, this year has felt the most like normal since 2019.
“It feels great to see that we still have the same community we had before COVID, and everybody coming back out and supporting all the small businesses,” said Dantzler. “It does feel really good to see so many like similar faces that we saw before.”
“We're very optimistic about the summer and can't wait to get things more back to normal for everybody. We have such a large community that's spread out geographically so much, so it's really nice to have something like Restaurant Week to focus on local restaurants to bring people downtown.”
For the full list of Restaurant Week Deals.
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