Dine Originals Week is a Wrap

November 14, 2011 – 9:36 am Posted by Katharine Moore

Filed under: Features

Dine Originals Week is a wrap…and we have all of you to thank for a terrific week of keeping it local. Discover, the Official Card of Dine Originals, The Columbus Dispatch and Alive, GFS, and Watershed Distillery joined in the effort and made resources available for the promotional campaign.

We go all out with this twice a year, because we believe that the surest way to turn a stranger into a customer is to get them in the door…so we turn our chef’s loose with unique menu items and persuade the business managers that the affordable price point is an investment. Then we just sort of sit back and watch it unfold. The buzz builds throughout the week…thanks in large measure to our cyber friends with blogs like CMH Gourmand, Columbus Food Adventures, and Dishing it Up. We also had friends at WCBE, Fox 28, and WOSU making the case for getting out and about. One great report on the week appeared on Crave’s website…did you try any of the same places?

We LOVE sharing the awareness and the receipts of Dine Originals Week with our colleagues at Local Matters. Their work takes place in schools, at Settlement Houses, in garden patches and community kitchens, as well as at the State House. Together, we can make wholesome, local food more accessible to all. Learn how you can take action at www.Local-Matters.org

We have holiday gift certificates on sale now, a discount certificate release coming in January (with a few still in inventory just a click away) , and our first Dine Originals Week of 2012 booked for March 5 through the 12th. Keep us in mind and on your calendar, and know how very much we appreciate the support you put behind our efforts!

A Few Testimonials

November 4, 2011 – 9:55 am Posted by Katharine Moore

Filed under: Features

We asked our most engaged supporters for their ideas about how to extend an invitation for Dine Originals Week…and their passionate responses didn’t disappoint!

On behalf of the champions of the Dine Locally movement in Central Ohio, we invite you to weave Dine Originals Week into your plans for next week.

I’ve grown up always supporting the ‘local guy.’ My dad started his own business and believed in giving back to the community. I love Dine Originals because I have the opportunity to support the community and enjoy something I love: food. When Dine Originals Week is announced, I eagerly look through every menu and rank my top 5, send it to my husband and see if we have any of the matching restaurants. We then pick a date! I love the creativity of the week, the opportunity to enjoy an exquisite meal for only $30! It’s not every week I can go to Alana’s for a 3 course meal and only spend $30. I can’t wait to enjoy Thai Curried Peanut Pumpkin.

-Ashley Chaney

I think the best part about Dine Originals week is the opportunity to experience new restaurants and menus for a reasonable price, while supporting local businesses at the same time. With over 40 restaurants participating, how could this not be your favorite week of the year? It’s certainly mine.

Thanks,
- Molly Adams

I’d say ‘Dine Originals gives us an opportunity to experience more than the chicken fingers at Applebee’s. Come on!’

- Deauna

My friends and I have a ritual. As soon as the menus come out we have a cocktail hour…each one of us picks a favorite and puts it in a bag…then we draw the winner. Last March we ended up scheduling three dinners because there were so many places we wanted to try! This will be a bigger deal than Thanksgiving for my group.

- April Stinson

Even Italian, French, Chinese, seafood, Thai, Mexican-themed restaurants use local produce, fish (Lake Erie counts as local!) and meats in their preparations. Everyone knows you don’t get scallops from Ohio, but you can prepared them with Ohio-made bacon, red peppers, pasta, spinach, mushrooms and grape seed oil. Alana does this very well, visiting local markets for fresh produce and having standing orders with green grocers. If we eat locally, we get a deal – in addition to fresh food.

Hope these are some helpful ideas!

- Marc

We look forward to Dine Originals Week when we can have a mini vacation right before the busy holiday season. It is so relaxing to wine and dine all week in exciting new venues, as if we were on vacation in another city. Dine Originals’ diverse selection of restaurants gives us many options from which to choose. Then we start planning ahead for the next Dine Originals week. Thanks for giving us a real taste of Columbus.

- Cindy Hartsook

Experience the amazing flavors of Dine Originals Columbus’s great restaurants from “A” (Alana’s Fine Foods and Spirits ) to “Z” Z Cucina. Rediscover that we have the best places in the world to have great food and great times!

- Vicky Tabor Branson

The Chef at G. Michael’s Bistro never disappoints. The Originals Week menus are always something I would never have thought of, but can’t wait to try. I always suspect this might be the way he cooks at home!

- Gloria Sweeney

I look forward to Dine Originals Week so that I can support those who are providing local foods. I know the difficulty of maintaining a strictly local diet year-round in Ohio and am not in a position yet to provide much for myself. I am so grateful for the restauranteurs who take the effort to base their menus on local products, thereby supporting the local farmers who work so hard. Thank you!

- Alissa L. Keel