Photo by Tim Brown.

Photo by Tim Brown.

Update: Winter Restaurant Week will be extended until February 3.

It was previously slated to end on January 31.

Original: Blizzard conditions in the restaurant world mean snow specials to lure folks into the storm and through the door. A percent off for every inch of snow that falls! Happy hour until the federal government reopens! Several of those ad hoc promotions are still in effect as the region continues to thaw out. At the same time, those specials are flowing into a regular one that—unlike historic snowstorms—comes like clockwork this time of year: Winter Restaurant Week.

More than 250 restaurants will offer fixed price $22 lunches or $35 dinners (or both). For those with some unexpected days off and the ability to get around as the city’s dig out continues, it’s an unexpected opportunity for a leisurely three course at a potential bargain. Just be sure to check if your preferred restaurant is open.

The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington’s (RAMW) website is compiling a list of closings and delays from participating restaurants. As of Monday morning, 10 restaurants were listed as being closed today or open but holding off until tomorrow before going forward with their Restaurant Week menus. Of those, several are located downtown. As the list also advises, before heading out to your restaurant of choice, it’s a good idea to confirm with them that they are open.

A dining rewards program is a new feature of Winter Restaurant Week this year. For reservations originated via the RAMW website, diners can earn prizes like gift cards, food event tickets, and weekend getaways. And through a partnership with meal delivery service UberEats, a different restaurant week special lunch can be delivered to your door each day in downtown D.C. The service is unavailable Monday due to the weather, but the website advertises spaghetti bolognese from Poste Brasserie on Tuesday, Charleston perlau from Georgia Brown’s on Wednesday, and other specials as the week goes on for $12 or less.

Our long-standing advice still holds firm. While dinner can get expensive, lunch can be a fantastic deal if you find the right place. Don’t be afraid to walk in without a reservation—especially this post-blizzard week. You can almost always get a seat at the bar or even a table for a party of a reasonable size. And especially after the messy weekend, restaurants can use the business. As Dean Gold of Dino’s Grotto wrote in a Sunday email to customers, “We made it thru the snow relatively unscathed, but the loss of a Friday and Saturday is a pretty big hit to our cash flow.”

Perhaps you’ve already eaten your way through the pantry you stocked raiding the supermarkets pre-storm. Time to get out there and dine!

Filed Under: Restaurant week,