Through a partnership with sponsor Stella Artois, Bite30, the city-wide promotion featuring 30+ local restaurants serving $30 prix fixe three-course experiences, will raise money for the James Beard Foundation’s “Open for Good” Fund to help independent restaurants weather the crisis caused by the pandemic. While Bite30 restaurants who carry the special bottle will retain all of the revenue from those sales, Stella Artois will donate 50 cents of each Open for Good aluminum bottle sold to the fund.
“Over the last year, our work with the James Beard Foundation has allowed us to support restaurants from the start of the pandemic. With the return to full capacity, we hope this new product offering can further support the industry to safely return to operating as we remember them,” said Lara Krug, VP of Marketing, Stella Artois via a press release. “We’re excited to invite consumers to join us in our efforts to support their local eateries with a Stella in hand.”
“When I started Orlando Restaurant Week, which later became Bite30, it was in 2008, the height of the financial crisis,” remarked Graham Jarrett, publisher of
Orlando Weekly. “It was also a massive crisis for local restaurants. This was a way we could help by driving business into their doors. I am ecstatic to welcome back Stella Artois as a sponsor, who is enabling us to take the support of independent restaurants a step further while featuring this product.”
Other changes coming to Bite30 for 2021 include expanding it from its usual thirty days of June to run June 1 - August 1, a full sixty-two days. This allows diners more time to hit more restaurants, and helps restaurants even more through the long, hot and traditionally slow Florida summers. Also new this year will be the launch of a digital “passport” that diners can use to gain points when dining at certain locations or enjoying drinks from the sponsors. Each task completed will award diners points, which qualifies them for prizes.
This year’s restaurant lineup includes first-timers, The Backroom Steakhouse in Apopka and Blu on the Avenue in Winter Park, as well as many returning favorites, including Ravenous Pig, Artisan’s Table, The Boheme and many more.
2021 will also see the return of Publix Aprons Cooking Schools as the presenting sponsor, which means those special $30 three-course Bite30 classes are back!
Bite30 will also serve as Central Florida’s official introduction to Garrison Bros. Bourbon, made in the first and oldest legal distillery in Texas. While it’s only been available in a few very select Central Florida locations, Bite30 diners will be able to enjoy the whiskey at 310 Park South, Taverna Opa and several other Bite30 restaurants. The special three-course menus on Bite30.com will also indicate locations featuring Garrison Bros. as well as the special Stella Artois and Tito’s cocktails.
Orlando Weekly editor Jessica Bryce Young says, “We were concerned about Bite30 in 2020, but the community really rallied around the restaurants. We know things haven’t completely normalized, but I feel like Bite30 will kind of kick-off the second half of 2021, the part where we actually start doing things a lot more like we used to.”
To participate in Bite30, diners do not need the passport or any special coupons. The Bite30 menu should be presented by the restaurants, and in the case that it is not, they should simply ask for it. Since some restaurants tend to get very busy during this time, reservations are highly recommended.
For more information on Bite30, go to
Bite30.com and follow
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