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Date: 5/31/2022
HOLYOKE – If you have yet to explore the vast offerings from the different restaurants in Holyoke, the upcoming Restaurant Week starting June 6 is the perfect opportunity to do so.
The Holyoke Office of Planning and Economic Development (OPED), in collaboration with Glammore Premier Events have created a new cultural event called Explore Holyoke Restaurant Week (EHRW).
Building off the 2019 Holyoke Tourism Plan, OPED has been working with a large tourism stakeholders group to move forward on strategic tourism initiatives and promote local business. Director of Planning and Economic Development Aaron Vega said as the city was focused on supporting small businesses throughout the coronavirus pandemic, restaurants were an obvious area that took some of the biggest hits during it and was an area of focus for revitalization coming out of the last two years.
“Whatever we can do to support our new restaurants and long-standing restaurants here in Holyoke, that’s definitely one of our charges in the OPED,” Vega said. “It became a cultural event we can do but also support our small businesses, particularly our restaurants.”
Vega also added events like this were recommended when creating the 2019 Holyoke Tourism Plan but due to the coronavirus pandemic, it has taken some time to fall into place.
The week-long event that ends on June 12 will allow local restaurants to showcase their menu options and increase local and out-of-area visitors. Participants will have the opportunity to track their food journey with a “food passport” that lists all participating restaurants involved in the event.
After a visit at one of the participating EHRW restaurants, the participant will obtain a stamp to confirm their visit. At the end of EHRW, the passports will be utilized as a coupon, and the number of stamps obtained during EHRW will correspond to a discount that can be applied after EHRW. A coupon is good for one visit and for food only.
A minimum of three visits gets you a 15 percent off coupon, while 17 plus visits gets you a maximum 50 percent off. Vega said of the 17 restaurants participating, many are new and that he hopes diners will discover new offerings within Holyoke.
He also added he hopes this continues the trend of bringing people back out to restaurants due to the status of COVID-19 and warmer weather coming.
“We hope that we can start getting people back to the restaurants. Back to eating out, back to being social, back to having fun, having some good food, having a drink or two,” Vega said. “We support all the restaurants in Holyoke, even the ones not participating this year.”
Vega himself is looking forward to the week but said his problem is he already eats out at these establishments too much as he always has and is looking to support restaurants within the community. He added he is looking forward to getting dinner back at Woodstone Tavern, a newly opened restaurant and also some of the smaller restaurants like CRAVE and Khi and Eli’s Food for the Soul.
Holyoke Community College (HCC) culinary students will be teaming up with local restaurants to create prix fixe meals for EHRW. Part of EHRW includes cooking demonstrations at the restaurants and at the HCC MGM Culinary Institute at the Cubit Building on Race Street.
Vega says leading up to EHRW, people interested can check out the new exploreholyoke.com site just put together by the city. He added all information for EHRW can be found on the main page of the site and you can also download your food passport there as well as see links to restaurants involved.
Vega said the website is long overdue and will serve as a tool for the community. There is also a section on the site where any Holyoke organization can put their event within a community calendar as a way to help multiple parties in Holyoke see what is going on during a certain weekend, or any other conflicts of interest through scheduling.
The site also will have information on many different businesses for those interested and community participation is encouraged in providing information on the site.
“We’re encouraging the community to participate, this is not something we can do on our own,” Vega said. “Restaurants, events, retailers, they can go right on the page and at the top submit their listing or event and it’s really easy. We can populate all the information so if people come to Holyoke, or people who live in Holyoke want to think where can I get that next toy for Christmas, or where can I go get my new pair of shoes, or where can I go eat? Their first place they go to is exploreholyoke.com.”