photo by: Courtesy of Lucky Seb’s Dumpling Bar and Grill

The smoked beef rib pho, one of the Lawrence Restaurant Week specials at Lucky Seb’s Dumpling Bar and Grill.

Even some local restaurateurs don’t know how diverse Lawrence Restaurant Week is, as Will Soo can attest.

Soo, who serves on the Lawrence Restaurant Association’s board, owns Lucky Seb’s Dumpling Bar and Grill at 2210 Iowa St. He’s asked other restaurants outside of downtown to participate in the annual showcase before – and some didn’t realize they could.

“Their initial thought was, ‘I thought it was only for downtown restaurants,'” Soo said.

In fact, this year’s Restaurant Week features lots of businesses other than the ones you walk past on Massachusetts Street. They’re in East Lawrence and North Lawrence, on Iowa Street and even farther west, said Lawrence Restaurant Association President Laura Klein, who owns Mass Street Fish House. And they specialize in all kinds of foods and drinks, from crepes to curries to cocktails.

“All these different neighborhoods are participating, all these different types of restaurants, from fast casual, coffee, bars,” Klein said. “… I just think it’s a nice showcasing of the diversity of hospitality, the quality.”

Restaurant Week begins Thursday, Jan. 15, and runs through Sunday, Jan. 25, and more than 40 local restaurants will be offering specials this year. A portion of sales goes to help the Hospitality Workers Relief Fund.

Klein said participation is about the same as last year, but some of the names on the list are new. She mentioned Meadowlark Wine Bar, 1011 Massachusetts St., and Sable Kitchen and Bar, 920 Delaware St. in East Lawrence, as a couple of the newcomers. Meadowlark is offering a three-course meal, headlined by pan-seared chicken or a ratatouille bake; and Sable will be serving beef tartare, crab cake salad and duck cassoulet.

“Restaurant Week is a great time for people to try some of these restaurants that they haven’t really tried before,” Klein said. “And kind of like a packaged course menu allows people to have a curated experience, but also some diversity or some variety.”

Of course, not every restaurant is offering a multi-course dinner menu. Some have a list of la carte offerings instead. And the participating businesses also include bars, coffee shops and even a smoothie shop – Fresh Cut Smoothies in the former North Amyx Barbershop location, which Klein said is another first-timer.

“You can participate in Restaurant Week if you’re looking for a brand new dining experience in a new restaurant with courses, or you can grab a really special pastry or a special cup of coffee,” she said.

“And also,” she added, “I think it should be mentioned that pretty much all of these restaurants are locally owned, independently owned.”

Changing, growing and helping

Regan Pillar’s Mediterranean restaurant Culinaria, at 512 E. Ninth St. in East Lawrence, has been part of Restaurant Week since 2018, and she’s seen a lot change over the years.

“It’s always been a successful week,” she said, “but I’ve watched the impact just grow and grow.”

This is the 12th year for Restaurant Week, which started off as a program of Downtown Lawrence Inc. in 2014. Back then, it was called “Downtown Lawrence Restaurant Week” and featured just 19 restaurants, all in the downtown area.

Since then, it’s expanded to include restaurants all over the city, and the Lawrence Restaurant Association has taken the lead in organizing it. But perhaps the biggest change is that it became a benefit for the Hospitality Workers Relief Fund.

Klein recalled that when the relief fund began during the COVID pandemic, it was giving out money directly to food service workers in the form of checks. But the board, which is based around volunteers who all own their own businesses, wasn’t able to keep up with the administrative load of evaluating requests for money.

Instead, it began partnering with nonprofits that can use the funding to help hospitality workers with health care, child care, rent assistance and more.

To date, the fund has given out about $300,000 in assistance, Klein said, “and that feels like no small accomplishment.”

Pillar noted that the restaurant and bar industry is a seasonal business and ebbs and flows at different times of year. In slow times, she said, the fund for workers “has been such an amazing lifeline.”

“The rental assistance, the medical assistance and all these are ways that we’re able to help support people through this time of year, which is just generally a slower time for our industry,” Pillar said.

Local support

What hasn’t slowed down is the community’s interest in Restaurant Week, which Pillar said has been strong from the start. For restaurants like hers and Soo’s that are in less prominent locations, that community interest is essential.

Pillar’s Culinaria is “facing east in a parking lot in East Lawrence,” she said. “At least every month, somebody walks through the door and says, ‘Oh my gosh, where did you guys come from?’ or ‘Is this new? Did you guys just open?'”

And Lucky Seb’s is set farther back from Iowa Street, in a location without much foot traffic, and Soo said the construction last year on Iowa didn’t help.

Soo has encountered some owners outside of downtown who don’t believe Restaurant Week will help them that much. But in his experience, “you’ll definitely see a boost in sales.”

And the community’s support is how restaurants like his can thrive and attract regular customers.

“Word of mouth works so well in this town,” Soo said. Often, he said, when Lawrence residents discover that “there is this locally owned business way off of Mass. Street, they’ll eventually give it a shot.”

Pillar believes there are some perks to not being on Massachusetts Street. Downtown restaurants often feel pressure to be open seven days a week, she said, but owners who have a bigger role in operating their restaurant might want a more flexible schedule. Culinaria’s East Lawrence location provides that, she said.

But still, she said, “it’s definitely a slower building process for a business, obviously, than if we were sitting in the heart of downtown.”

‘The perfect bite’

What Klein likes about Lawrence Restaurant Week, as opposed to similar events in other communities, is “that each establishment can kind of do their own thing.” Some get very experimental, some do curated experiences with full menus, some bring back dishes that are fan favorites.

At Lucky Seb’s, a special variety of the Vietnamese beef noodle soup pho has been a Restaurant Week staple for a couple of years. The menu says it features “‘Flintstones’ meat on a bone.”

“One year I just wanted this ridiculously large chunk of meat on a bone instead of having it all sliced up,” he said. Lucky Seb’s smokes a lot of meat for its other dishes, so smoked ribs were a natural fit. Since then, “it’s always been a hit.”

At Culinaria, the focus is on bold flavors and how they fit together.

“We’re high-acid, we have high heat,” Pillar said. “We just tend to have these kind of big flavor bombs, no matter whether it is a meat course or a veggie course.”

This year, there’s a “BLT latke” with confit pork belly, bitter arugula and a spicy tomato relish, and a gnocchi with peas, butter and guajillo chile crisp. When asked about the inspiration for these combinations of flavors and textures, Pillar summed it up like this:

“I think it is this constant desire for the perfect bite.”

You can plan your search for the perfect bite at explorelawrence.com/lawrencerestaurantweek, where dozens of participating restaurants have posted their menus and specials.