Fish tacos from Conejo, a first-time participant in Richmond Restaurant Week, whose spring 2023 edition takes place April 24-30 (Photo by April Greer)
Defining the success of an event isn’t always clear cut, but it’s safe to say a fundraiser with more than two decades behind it, bringing in more than $1 million for a local nonprofit, is on the right track.
That event is Richmond Restaurant Week, and “I think it borders on an institution,” says Doug Pick, CEO of Feed More, a Richmond-based food bank that collects, prepares and distributes food for those in need across Central Virginia and is the beneficiary of donations from the fundraiser.
Acacia Midtown co-owner Aline Reitzer started Richmond Restaurant Week in 2001, and in the years since, the event has become an anticipated tradition in the dining community that takes place twice a year.
“You don’t go 20 years without one or a couple people making it happen. … It’s one or two that sticks with it and are dedicated, and that’s Aline,” Pick says.
Previously working at The Ryland Inn, a James Beard Award-winning estate in New Jersey, Reitzer eventually relocated to Richmond for a front-of-house position at the acclaimed restaurant The Frog and The Redneck. There she would meet Dale, now her husband and fellow Acacia owner. Looking for a way to root herself deeper in the Richmond restaurant community and possessing a natural tenacity, Reitzer began to reflect on how to make that happen.
“When I worked and lived in New Jersey, I would go up to New York, and at that point, restaurant week was just go out to eat and support the restaurants, support tourism,” she says. “When I started thinking about doing something down here, we started seeing an influx of bigger restaurants, chain restaurants and really wanted to do something that would bind the local restaurant community even more so.”
Enter Richmond Restaurant Week. Now in its third decade, the biannual event returns for its spring edition April 24-30. Participating restaurants, from the veteran Julep’s to first-timer Conejo, will offer multicourse prix fixe menus for $35.23 (the price always reflecting the current year), with $5.23 from each meal going to Feed More.
Donations help fund Feed More projects including Meals on Wheels, a volunteer-run meal delivery service for homebound adults, and monthly School Markets that supply children in rural Virginia with food.
Much as the roster of restaurants has grown — from nine during the first year to dozens now — so have the needs of the nonprofit benefiting from the event. Feed More plans to start construction in October on a new facility in Henrico County that will provide the organization with 25% more space and a kitchen double the size of its current operation.
“We’ve been out of space for three years, and we simply can’t keep up; our needs are growing, and we need more space,” says Pick, who joined FeedMore in 2012 after stints at IBM and Capital One.
The connection between Richmond restaurants and organizations working to combat food insecurity dates back even further: In 1967, Meals on Wheels — a concept originally conceived in Great Britain during World War II to feed older people — launched locally from a longstanding restaurant space in the Fan.
“The first Meals on Wheels came out of the second floor of the building of the 3 Monkeys on Main Street,” Pick says. “Our origins are out of that second floor of 3 Monkeys.”
The longevity of Richmond Restaurant Week is testament to Richmonders’ enthusiasm for local restaurants and local charities, Reitzer says.
“I think Richmond is just of that culture; the guests get behind it in such a way, they are going out to eat very often to not only support the restaurants, but also support Feed More,” she says. “As far as I can tell, Richmond Restaurant Week is the first restaurant week model that is like this, where there is a charitable aspect to it, ... and I think that speaks to the Richmond community and the support they have with giving back.”
