The Unqualified Culinary Critics

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Hello, and welcome to the Unqualified Culinary Critics. We are a Vegas-based podcast that celebrates food and culture. Join us as we talk about our food and cultural experiences, and we do hope that these stories connect in some way to each one of you as well.

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Thank you so much for tuning in once again. We are here with another very special episode. a couple months ago we had Will from ThreeSquare and he is back. So we all love living in Vegas and obviously we live in Vegas but unfortunately hunger is still a very big problem here. We do have some statistics just so you guys get an idea of how serious of an issue it is. So although the numbers have been going downward slightly, food insecurity here in Southern Nevada is still, sorry, it still remains on the higher level than it did before the pandemic. More than 341,000 individuals continue to face hunger and obviously as ThreeSquare would say, any number bigger than zero is too high. Just so you get more of an idea of what these numbers are. One in seven individuals is facing hunger and one in four children live in food insecure households. We are here trying to spread awareness about Three Squares so you guys know how to help this issue so we know how to help this issue as well. All right. Would you like to introduce yourself again, Will, just so our listeners can get a reminder.

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Sure. Hey, thank you guys for having us and thinking about Three Square and the hunger problem here in Southern Nevada. My name is Will Edwards. I am the Marketing Outreach Specialist here at Three Square. I've been with Three Square for five years, and one of my main functions here is to organize and manage Las Vegas restaurant week. So obviously for this since last time we had you we talked about Three

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Square the organization themselves and this time we're going to be focusing on Las Vegas Restaurant Week specifically. Would you like to give our listeners

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kind of like a rundown of what it is? Sure. Restaurant Week has been going actually this is the 16th year that we've done Restaurant Week and it is a 12-day event all about going out and eating to help others, which sounds funny, but the way it is is restaurants will put together a three-course pre-fixed menu at prices between $20 and $80. Every time a guest goes in and eats off that menu, the restaurant donates four or five or six dollars back to Three Square to help us in the fight against hunger. This year, restaurant week will be June 5th to the

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16th. So with this event when people buy food, how much food is like, how much food can be provided? Like how much food does a dollar provide or how many meals?

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Here at ThreeSquare, every dollar that's donated, we provide three meals. So if you go to a restaurant and that restaurant is giving $6 back, by just eating at that menu, you will be able to help us produce 18 meals, which is pretty, pretty outstanding. I'll also tell you that last year, we had 211 participants, and they generated more than $200,000 in donations, which gave ThreeSquare the ability to provide more than 600,000 meals into the community.

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Wow, that is astounding. Really great work right there.

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Yeah, you know, I always, I just think of, I think of Restaurant Week as a great community event, you know.

0:04:06
So I was just kind of curious to ask, actually. So you mentioned that Las Vegas Restaurant Week is in 16 year. We were kind of wondering who came up with the idea of Las Vegas Restaurant Week in general.

0:04:19
That's a good question. I have no idea. It has to be someone who no longer works here, because if they did, they would probably be, we would probably be talking a lot about it. But, you know, it is a fundraiser benefiting the community through ThreeSquare. So it might've come in through our development and fundraising department who created it. But now it lives in marketing, actually. And so, you know, we take it very seriously. We like to have fun with it. And we know that in the end, those working families and those individuals that struggle with hunger will be able to go to bed and be happy that they can have a meal.

0:05:02
Yes, yes, I agree. So getting into a little bit more about the event, how do restaurants sign up for the event actually?

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So the way it basically works is I will usually reach out to a restaurant. Sometimes restaurants reach out to us as well, but the majority of the reaching comes from me to them, inviting them to join us. And then when they do, they go to RestaurantWeekLV.org and there's a registration button. So they just hit the button and they register online. Everything is online.

0:05:38
It's very easy, actually.

0:05:40
So if a restaurant wants to be part of Restaurant Week, do they necessarily have to be contacted by you?

0:05:48
Well, they have to. They do. So a couple of things have to happen. If they're doing Restaurant Week and they didn't sign up with me, they won't be on the website, first of all, and nobody will know that they're doing it. And then number two, I have to have all of their information because at the end of the event, we have to make sure that we get in the donation. Yes, they have to go through me.

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That makes sense.

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And then is there a limit as to how many restaurants can sign up, like a number of restaurants? Not really.

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You know, it's funny that you say that because we were thinking about, do we put a cap on it and really focus on the ones that we get? Or do we just each year, you know, work on getting more than what we had the year before? And so we we just kind of settled on the latter and just kind of working on, you know, getting as many involved. to focus sometimes my attention, and not for everything, but I like to focus my attention on neighborhood restaurants as well. You know, we have our staple restaurants that join, which are usually on the strip, and they're fantastic. But then I, you know, want the neighborhood restaurants to be part of it as well. And over the years, we've just really been cultivating that and getting more neighborhood restaurants involved.

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How many, so how many restaurants have participated in the event, like on average per year actually?

0:07:19
So each year it has, it has increased each year. Last year we had 189 restaurants and we had 22 special promotions. So we noticed that small or fast casual dining didn't do three course meals, but they did want to be involved and they did want to help the community and they did want to do it through with Restaurant Week. So we created a section called special promotions. It appears as a tab on RestaurantWeekLV.org. And what happens is anyone in the food and beverage industry can join. So I'll tell you right now who some of the different categories of special promotions that we have right now. We have like a wine bar, we have a funnel cake spot that's doing it, a brewery, an ice cream shop, a pizza All the bars at the Westgate do it. Taco Terrian this year is doing it. Let's see, the Coffee Class, the Crack Shack, the Dueling Axes at Area 15, and Yukon Pizza is doing it. Course Trailer Hideaway is doing it. Evil Pie, Forte Tapas, Flight Club, and Boss Cafe. club and boss cafe. And basically they just pick items off of their menu, one or more, and they then also pick how much they're going to donate when you purchase those items during restaurant week. So for example, Broad's Funnel Cake Cafe is at Town Square and they're doing, doing their famous and most popular funnel cake, which is a strawberry and cream funnel cake, and they're giving a dollar back for each funnel cake purchased during restaurant week. They're a great partner, and they've been doing it for three years, and that's the number of years that I've

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been using. So that's special promotions. Yeah, that's pretty cool that there's a way for, you know, like fast food dining to join in that. And I do have a question. So obviously with those sort of restaurants, you don't necessarily need to make a reservation, but would you need to make a reservation with the

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other ones? That's a great question. And the answer mostly is yes. And you will see on RestaurantWeekLV.org, once you click on the restaurant's logo, in their menu page, there will be a bar that says, make a reservation. Click on it and it takes you to whatever reservation platform that they're using. And then you can do a reservation through that, or you can just call the restaurant and make a reservation. But I encourage people to make reservations. Restaurant week is, I call it the most wonderful time of the year, because it's that opportunity to go out and to have a meal at a restaurant that you might not have thought that you could afford any other time of the year. So it gives you an opportunity to explore the city's culinary delights, so to speak, and you're also helping to give back.

0:10:42
So that's always fun. So since you mentioned going to places you might not be able to afford. So then are the prices fixed for this event?

0:10:54
They are. The way it works is if the restaurant offers breakfast or brunch, it can only be $20 or $30. If they offer lunch, it's $20, $30, or $40. And then dinner is $30, $40, $50, $60, or $80. So there's no menu that will be over 80 bucks. So that's good.

0:11:15
That way you guys are helping feed students, if you're people, and also anybody who wants to try these cool restaurants, nicer, upscale restaurants, too.

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Exactly.

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I mean, it's a win-win-win for everybody that gets involved. Of course, it's a win for those in the community who need food the most because of the donations, but it's a win for the restaurant as well because they're now introducing themselves to maybe a whole new audience and a whole new potential clients. It's a win for Three Square because we get those donations and we're able to turn those into meals. It's just a win-win all around. And the great thing about Restaurant Week, and we've worked very hard on this, is that there's something for everybody. There really is something for everybody. And you'll see when you go into the website once it's launched, you'll see that if you go to a certain restaurant and they have three choices in the first course, three choices in the second course, three choices in the third course, I'd say take three friends out and everybody orders something different and just have a feast, you know. And you get to know what the restaurant is like, you know, you get to help feed people, which is the whole purpose of it. Yeah, it really is a great, I always say it's a great community event. It's a great community event and it gives us, you know, all of us an opportunity to go places where, you know, maybe we don't think of going any other time of the year. So it's, you know, it's like Christmas in June.

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Yes. You get to eat all you want and you're helping people. Like, what could be better than that?

0:13:17
Exactly. You mentioned, so you and Victoria talked about like the fixed prices for the restaurants. Was that something that Three Square was very instrumental in making with the restaurants? Or do the restaurants kind of had that idea themselves? Like,

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how is that process kind of handled? So there is a structure for the event, and it's important that the structure is held and it works. And of course, we've adjusted it a little here and there. We've added different price points to different meals over the years. But keeping that structure holds the event together, right? So that you don't go to one restaurant and the structure is completely different than the restaurant you went to last night. You know what I mean? So everybody understands, all the guests that are going out, they understand that it's a three-course or more meal that they're going to get if they go to a restaurant. They understand that the restaurant will price their menu at one of those six prices. They understand that the restaurant picks how much they want to give back on each of those meals. So always been the way it is and it just helps us to make it basically an even playing field across the board. You know what I'm saying?

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Yeah, I like the idea that it's good to just even it out in a sense because like everybody's been saying it's affordable, it's better that way and nobody can really fuss about that because it's just giving back to the community in this case by just simply eating out. So yeah, exactly. So another question that I have actually is what year has Three Squares seen its greatest amount, like its greatest turnout of restaurants and customers contributing to this special

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event? A little before me, it was in 2019. I think they had, they didn't focus that much back then on special promotions. So they had, I think, something in the neighborhood of like 204 restaurants joined. And I think their donations that were made was about 240,000 at that time. So that was pre-pandemic. So we have been fighting and scratching to get back to the pre-pandemic numbers. And it's my hope that this year we'll blow it all out of the water. At least that's what I'm planning. Yes.

0:15:46
Fingers crossed and knock wood, okay?

0:15:48
Fingers crossed and knock wood. Yeah, well, I think it really helps

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that you guys do it in June,

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which the start of like summer vacation and I'm sure like tourists somehow end up helping without even realizing that this is going on too.

0:16:06
Yeah, it's you know, what's great too is that we get I get emails and calls from people all over the world actually wanting to know when restaurant week is so they can plan their trip to Las Vegas during that time. And yes, yes. And the interesting thing about it is they love that they can get a great meal at a great price, but they also love helping our community as well and knowing that someone else is going to eat because they did.

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Dang, that's good to know.

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So then you guys are pretty popular and known worldwide.

0:16:39
Yeah, it's a lot of, you know, this kind of work, I'm gonna just say, not just on Restaurant Week, but Restaurant Week gives people an opportunity to donate, right? Everybody is gonna donate the way they feel that they can donate, or they feel that they're gonna have the greatest impact. And you'll have some donors who will donate every month. You have some donors that wanna give you a larger sum for the year, but then you have donors who wanna do it through Restaurant Week. So Restaurant Week just gives those who might not do it regularly, gives them an opportunity to donate to the community through ThreeSquare.

0:17:22
Yeah, pretty helpful.

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Go ahead, I'm sorry.

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No, sorry. I was just saying, yeah, it's a pretty helpful thing, and it seems like it brings in tourists as well. So it's not only helping feed Las Vegas, but it's helping Las Vegas's economy.

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Yeah. And, you know, we do it also in June. Believe this or not, believe it or not, it's because it's so hot, usually in June, it's a slower time for restaurants. And so it really is a great way, kind of almost a jumpstart, not even a jumpstart, but it's just a great time for us to do it. So for everybody listening, it will be, this year it'll be June 5th to the 16th. Our website, which is restaurantweeklv.org, will launch on May 15th, where you can see all the participating restaurants and the special promotions. So there, like I said, there's something for everyone and there's something for every budget. You just got to look through it and find out. Here's another fun thing is that the website has a lot of ways that you can filter. So you can filter through restaurants by price point. So if you just want to find a $20 lunch, you can find it through that. It also filters by the amount that's being given back. That's four, five or $6 back to ThreeSquare. So you can do that as well. And some client, sorry, some diners, they like to see how much the restaurant is giving back because the likelihood is that they want their meal to have the largest impact. So they'll go places that will give six dollars. You know what I mean? And I've heard customers talk about that and I've had conversations with them and they talk about, well, I want to see who's given what back. And that might determine where they go during Restaurant Week.

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Yeah. I was wondering, since you're mentioning that, you know, that you guys have that filter, do you have any tips and tricks for how people should go about Restaurant Week? That's a good question.

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Tips and tricks.

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Well, first of all, as soon as the website launches, go to the website, peruse, click on menus, see what people are offering. Find the ones that you have thought that, oh my gosh, I would love to go there. And I haven't gone and I haven't done it. Those kinds of things. And then, you know, the diehard fans will go to places, go to different places, maybe four or five times throughout Restaurant Week. And a beautiful thing about the website as well is that you can click on favorites and you can send emails to friends and family about where you want to go during Restaurant Week, which is a fun little feature. You just click on the little star, and those are your favorites. Then you click on the button that says favorites, and it gives you a whole list, and then you can e-mail those and send them to your family and friends, and it'll give a link to the menu. Interesting. That changes things up.

0:20:43
I don't know. I feel like that makes it a little bit more enticing because it's like, you know You can show your friends be like look at this place. You know, this place has this and that

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Yeah, yeah

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Has your favorite local restaurant? participated in this

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They're they're all my favorites. They're all your favorites. All right Listen I get I get asked that a lot Victoria during during the press and stuff for Restaurant Week. I will never say that one is my favorite. I appreciate, here at Three Square, we appreciate these restaurant partners very much. Every year they come, they bring their best, and it's all for the community. You know what I mean? those veterans, those kids, or that family that is trying to make ends meet. You know what I mean? It's for those unhoused youth out there who are kind of struggling. So every single restaurant for me is a favorite just because they know what their place is in the community and they know what kind of impact they can make by being part of Restaurant Week.

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Yeah, they're showing they actually genuinely do care about Las Vegas.

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Yeah.

0:22:10
Of course, of course. We have a wonderful community here. And, of course, people might come here and ask us, oh, do you live on the strip?

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Yeah.

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What hotel do you live in? And I say to them, I say, did you not look out the window when you were flying in? There's more than just the strip here. And one of the things about Las Vegas is that when we are against any adversity or anything of that nature, we definitely have a tendency to fight back. And that means a lot here. So you're never going to find people who need something not getting something that they need and whatnot. And so that goes for restaurant week, it goes for regular donations, it goes for campaigns, it goes for volunteering, just across the board. We're doing a campaign right now called Bad Childhood Hunger, which is a campaign that the funds that are raised during this month go to all of our childhood nutrition programs. So that's another opportunity for people to give. And if anyone listening and you want to know more about Restaurant League, you want to know more about Three Square, you want to know how to get involved, you want to help your community, if we don't struggle with hunger, we're very fortunate. You know, we're very fortunate and there's nothing wrong with being fortunate, but we have to know what our obligation is to those who are not as fortunate as we are, you know, and there's always something that we can do. So you can go to 3square.org to find out how to help. And if you find that you are in a position where you're trying to make ends meet and you need some assistance, you can go to 3square.org and get help.

0:23:53
Yes.

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So I know you just told us, you know, you don't have a favorite restaurant, obviously, because they're all here to help.

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Are you excited about any of the new restaurants that are going to be joining

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this year? You're trying to call me out. You're trying to call me out, Victoria. I know what this

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is. Well, I mean, you can give a shout out to all of them again. Here's what I'll share with you.

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So right now, let me just see what we got here. So right now our first year restaurant participants, we have 42 of them right now. Oh, nice. That have never done it before, which is great. And I'll just kind of give you a smattering of who's joining us. Asalito Hosto is at Tivoli Village and they're joining us. Bala Italian Soul is at the Sahara. They're doing it this year. There is a local tavern called Big Boy Tavern. They're joining us this year. Let's go down. Echo and Rig, which we have known has been in Tivoli Village for a very long time, just opened up another restaurant in the district right across from Green Valley Ranch Hotel and Casino. So they're joining for the first time. El Dorado Cantina at Sunset and the one at Tivoli Village, they're joining for the first time. There's a great little chicken place that's owned by the owners and the chef at Sparrow and Wolf, it's called Half Bird. It's on Spring Mountain and Wynn, and they're joining for the first time this year. Pink Duck Kitchen is joining us, and I believe they are a Filipino restaurant, offering just some delicious delights. The Great American Pub has two locations that they're joining, Grand Canyon and Henderson. We also have Villa Azur, which is inside of the plaza on the Grand Canal Shops at the very, very end. They're joining us this year. Across from them is a bar and restaurant called Flight Club. It's like a dart club. So they're joining for the first time and they're doing a special promotion for Restaurant Week, which is exciting. The Dueling Axes, which is at Area 15, and I think I talked about it earlier, they're doing a special promotion as well. So, you know, that's a smattering of those that are coming for the first time. I love first-time participants. I love all of the participants. I love first-time participants because it gives them an idea of what's happening in the community. It shows them that there is a hunger problem and that they can do something about it. So, it's always great. Now, another great little tidbit is that we have the most second year participants in the history of Restaurant Week coming back this year.

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Nice.

0:26:58
That's some good, that's good retention.

0:27:00
Yeah.

0:27:01
I'm proud of that retention guys, I'm proud of it.

0:27:03
Yeah, no, that means, you know, that these restaurants are participating and they're loving it.

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Yes, so we have 57 second year participants.

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Yeah, that's a pretty big number. That's amazing for you guys, you know. It just means that, you know, these restaurants are gonna be more connected to the community and that they're gonna be helping even more people.

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And there's, you know, people have their favorites. So you're gonna, you're definitely gonna hit up your favorite, right? At least one night during the event. There's 12, it's 12 days. So during the 12 days, you're gonna definitely hit up your favorite. And then you probably, you might hit up one or two favorites. Let's just say that. And then you're going to branch out and hit places that you thought you haven't hit. Like, you know, you might think, man, I've never been to Resorts World, but their restaurants have joined. So let me go and check those guys out. Or I've never gone to Taco Terrian, but they're doing a special promotion. They have four locations all over the valley. Let me go out and check those guys out. So it's always, it's just a fun, it's just a fun thing. I create a list, by the way, guys. I create a list on where I'm gonna go and I create a list on who I'm going to go with.

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Yes.

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And I'm very, I am very particular because I know that the people that I'm picking to go, I know what they like, and we do that. I also, we go out to lunch with partners as well, and that's fun because they get to pick where they want to go, and then we take them out to thank them for all the hard work that they've done to help us get restaurants and so forth. So it is the most wonderful time of the year.

0:28:44
Yes, it is. Sounds like it.

0:28:48
Yes, with the power of food.

0:28:51
Yes, with the power of food. And look guys, Las Vegas is such a culinary destination. You know what I mean? You don't just come to Las Vegas just to gamble. I mean, I believe that we have, Las Vegas has probably, is the city that has the most celebrity chef-owned restaurants in the country. And everywhere you go, you're going to have probably a fantastic experience, or you're going to need help to get back to your car because it's so much food. You know, no matter what you want to hear or whatever, but these folks really, really do want to give back, you know. And whenever I am in a restaurant, they're always talking about, you know, I want to volunteer. We want to get the staff up, the team up to volunteer. Is there anything else that we can do to give back outside of Restaurant Week? So these guys are very committed to this community. And when you depend on the community, you have to support the community. And that's what happens through Restaurant Week and through the rest of the year. But these are some committed restaurants that come back each time. I personally look at them as donors rather than just restaurants. I steward them as if they're donors and not just, you know, you know what I mean, not just restaurants or individuals that support Three Square, support the community through Three Square. So they're very, in my

0:30:16
opinion, and for me, they're very special. Yeah, and honestly, we will agree with you that they are very special since, yeah, just knowing, I mean, I know we keep mentioning it, but just knowing the fact that

0:30:28
they do care about the community is honestly enough for me to want to support these businesses.

0:30:35
Right. It's, you know, it speaks of who they are.

0:30:38
Yeah. And, you know, they are doing good and helping feed a lot of people during that week.

0:30:47
Yes. And so I will say this as well, guys, and here's a pro tip. Every year since, I want to see 2018 or 2019, Buddy V's inside of the Venetian, one year they decided, hey, would it be okay if we did another week, if we offered our restaurant menu for another week? And at that time, I was not doing restaurant week, but at that time, the person who was running it said, yes, go ahead, do it. And then all the restaurants, you know, the restaurants that were participating at the Venetian all joined in as well. And they extended for an extra week. So it's now become a thing where restaurants may extend to the 23rd of June. So here's the pro tip. The pro tip is like inside, like probably the start or the middle of the second week, the start of the middle of the second week, we announced who's extending, right? So then you can plan like, oh, if they're extending, I don't have to go to that restaurant during the 12 days. I'll go to them on the extension. You got to be real tricky about your planning. Yeah, that's pretty smart. Maybe you can try even more. Exactly. Yeah. But the, um, go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, no, I was just going to say that's a really good tip. Yes, I probably last year ate at three restaurants and two special promotion that extension week. I try to do at least five special promotions and then I do some different restaurants depending on where people want to go and where I want to go myself. So I partake as well. I pay my bill and I help my community and I feel good about it.

0:32:36
That's good. That's really good. And I just have like, oh, go ahead.

0:32:40
No, no, go ahead. Please.

0:32:42
I was just going to ask my last question before we wrap up. Do you plan to, you know, like maybe make Restaurant Week like besides just one week and the extension, do you plan to make it like happen again another time in the year or is it just primarily right now going to be just a one-time thing in one week and extension?

0:33:02
If we did it more than once I would have to hire you Ashley and you Victoria because it is a beast. It is a beast and I'll tell you, you know, most people think that there's a gigantic team that organizes this whole thing, and it is not. This is an initiative that sits in the marketing department. And my position is really interesting because it crosses over between fundraising and marketing, so to speak, because we're raising money with this event. But it is solely organized and managed through marketing. So we have five people here in marketing, including my boss, who is the director of communications and PR communications. He's the director of PR communications. And so you have me who kind of runs the ship on restaurant week. So all the information that goes out, all the recruitment, all of that stuff that happens, goes through me. I do have a colleague that works with me. She is our digital marketing specialist and she helps me a great deal with support. But the other two is a PR specialist in our graphic designer and they help in their capacities as well. So any press releases, any PR or media opportunities will go through our PR specialist and she does a great job. And that helps me to not think about that and make sure that everything is correct for more than 200 participants once we launch the website on May 15th. So there's a lot that goes on in the back. If you saw this spreadsheet, you would probably be like, what is going on here? What is this guy doing? What is wrong with him? You have to be very organized with this kind of a thing. Otherwise, you will get lost. And even the more organized you are, you're still going to get lost. There's always going to be one person that gets missed somewhere. It just, I don't know how this happens every year, but it does. Someone will get lost. But we recover them and then we get them in and we go for it. But, you know, I have a Google Doc, which is the wheelhouse of the ship. And there's probably 20 tabs at the bottom of it that covers different categories of restaurants. And then it has all of the, I'll give you an example. You ready?

0:35:27
Sure.

0:35:28
So let's take neighborhood restaurants. So right now, and when I say neighborhood, this is, they're not on the strip. They're probably somewhere in your neighborhood, right? So currently, there are 55 neighborhood restaurants that have verbally confirmed to join Restaurant Week this year. And then there is an area that I have asks out, and that number is, and this is why spreadsheets come in handy, is because, let's see, So the first grouping is 126 that I have asked out. There are 35 that I've reached out through the restaurant's website. And then there are another 64 who I go and get into their DMs on social media. So there's a lot of work on the back end to reach out and invite these restaurants. And you want a variety, right? We don't want all steakhouses. We don't want all sushi. We want a nice a nice variety.

0:36:35
Yeah, you need something for everyone.

0:36:37
Exactly.

0:36:38
And you want it to be, you know, somewhat exciting and somewhat different each year, you know, because people are coming back. We have, you know, you got your returners and you want them to be excited about the offerings and you want them to see that there's new restaurants on there, you want them to see that there's a restaurant in their neighborhood, you know, the team works very hard to at least get one restaurant in every neighborhood. It's very difficult but we try to do it because we want to say, hey, for restaurant week,

0:37:11
there is a restaurant near you that is participating. And I mean that's good to hear because Vegas is a lot bigger than most people realize. So it is. Yeah. I'm sure having restaurants participate in all areas is going to bring in more people as well. Exactly. So

0:37:31
when I say there's something for everyone, there really is something for everyone. You know, if you love going to the Strip is tons of restaurants that are joining on the Strip. If you love burgers, there's tons of burgers on this menu. If you love seafood, tons of seafood on this menu. And then there are options for those who are vegetarian and those who are vegan, and you might even see it on your favorite restaurants menu page, that they do have options for vegetarians, vegans, for people that are gluten-free as well. So we try to cover the bases.

0:38:06
Yeah, that's good. Victoria, we got to get involved with Restaurant Week. We got to help promote it or like, what are socials, you know? And like me, or we can just each of us go to a restaurant that we like that's involved with Restaurant Week and give back.

0:38:22
Yeah, do an episode on them as well.

0:38:25
We can, yeah. And then I'll tell you this too, if you know restaurants in your area and you're like, hey, these guys should do it, send me an email at willedwards at threesquare.org and threesquare is spelled out threesquare.org. If you have a favorite and you want to make sure that they do it, so you can go, you can do that. And then when you go out for Restaurant Week, make sure to take tons of pictures, put it on your social media, tell people what it is that you're doing and how you're helping the community by going out. You know, use the hashtag LVRW and you can tell everybody what you're doing.

0:39:01
Oh, that's good to know. So there is a hashtag for it.

0:39:05
There is a hashtag.

0:39:07
Right. Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah.

0:39:10
And I say to people all the time, and some people, I say to them, you know, if you're in a position where you can't afford Restaurant Week, but you still want to help, there is a donation tab on RestaurantWeekLV.org, which like I said, $1 creates three meals. So if you have a dollar, you can donate that dollar. And you will provide three meals to someone in our community. So do what you can. Do what you can. I hope that everybody will find something exciting for restaurant week, which is happening June 5th to the 16th And I hope everybody goes out and supports and you're not just supporting the community supporting the restaurant Just putting three square and you're supporting those folks that need us the most

0:39:52
Yep

0:39:54
Alrighty, so do we have any final final thoughts before we wrap up? I'm good. Yeah, I guess my final thought is that when you find yourself being blessed and you find yourself being fortunate and you find yourself in a position where, you know, maybe it's not where you want to be but you're doing pretty well, reach out to others and help someone. It doesn't have to be. You don't have to go to a non-profit. You can just see a neighbor and just help a But I think that we have the power to make such change in our community. And I think that I encourage everyone to take that power and to make that impact in your community, whether you join a nonprofit, whether you volunteer, whether you do Restaurant Week, whether you donate to a campaign or to something that is near and dear to your heart. And maybe it's not Three Square, maybe it's another organization in our community all of those organizations are needed and they need you to help support them as well. I echo that sentiment. Thank you. So one last time, Las Vegas Restaurant Week will be June 5th to the 16th is an extension that will extend it for another week to the 23rd. On May 15th we will launch the website RestaurantWeekLV.org where you can go and find out the participating restaurants and the special promotions that will be happening during Restaurant Week, you know. I hope that everybody enjoys and goes out and supports.

0:41:29
Yes, and where can we find you? Like where can we find your socials for ThreeSquared? Threesquare just in case anybody's interested and maybe want to like share your post or tag you and all

0:41:41
So we have Instagram Instagram is at three square LV We have a restaurant week page on Facebook that you can check out. We also have LinkedIn and This year we're going to be playing around with some tick-tock. Oh We'll see how that goes guys guys. And then if you want to find out how to get help or give help you can go to threesquare.org. All right, it sounds good. And if you're listening and

0:42:07
you're interested in supporting Three Square in their special event for Restaurant Week, everything that Will just said, it's pretty much right there. To follow us for Instagram it's at unqualified culinary critics and then It's U-N-Q-C-L-U-C-R-I-T. So please do try and make this event. It'll go for a week, like Will said, and then there will be an extension. And it just sounds like a really good cause. And we're just really happy to have you come back on. And thank you so much again for agreeing to come back on and just talk about Restaurant Week. So we're really excited for this event. And we're excited for you and for Three Square. Well, thank you for thinking of us. We do appreciate that

0:42:53
I do want to give it offer to you Ashley and Victoria if you need any recommendation Let me know I'm here for you Let me know I'm here for you

0:42:59
Yes, thank you, thank you so much, thank you guys. All righty. Thank you

Transcribed with Cockatoo