The Shadow
COVINGTON, Va. (Alleghany Business Review) — The Alleghany Highlands will host its first-ever Restaurant Week beginning Feb. 20, a 10-day initiative designed to drive foot traffic to local eateries during what is traditionally the slowest stretch of the year for the region’s dining establishments.
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The event, a collaboration between Olde Town Covington and the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, will feature 23 participating restaurants spanning every locality in the region — Alleghany County, the city of Covington, Clifton Forge and Iron Gate — and will run through March 1.
“This is an effort to get people out of their comfort zone and get them out into the community at our restaurants during a slow time, to help build up some support for them,” said Josh Taylor of the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce and Tourism. “We really are encouraging the community to come out and support our local restaurants during their slow time and really uplift them as we move into the spring.”
Afton Griffin of Olde Town Covington said the event is less about promotion and more about economic survival for the region’s small restaurant owners.
“Our Restaurant Week is designed to keep the lights on, to extend out payroll, to support the staff that they already have in place, to continue to work through the winter months,” Griffin said. “We’re not talking big restaurants. We’re talking mom and pop, locally owned — people our kids play sports with, people that we walk by on the streets.”
The participating restaurants represent a wide range of dining options, from grab-and-go spots to sit-down establishments. Taylor highlighted several offerings, including fresh pepperoni rolls at Mountain Field Market, coffee and treats at Lyriks Cafe, donut specials at Hawt Stuph, and lunch at 42 Deli. The Friendly Fork, normally a catering operation, will open for sit-down dinners during the event and is accepting reservations.
Organizers have also introduced a passport program to encourage diners to visit multiple restaurants throughout the week. Each participating restaurant will carry tangible passports and a unique sticker specific to their establishment. Diners can collect stickers at each stop and turn in their completed passports to the Chamber of Commerce at the end of the event, with each sticker representing an entry into a drawing for gift cards and prizes.
“We wanted to incentivize people to not just go out and eat once during Restaurant Week, but to eat several times and support several businesses,” Taylor said.
The full list of participating restaurants, along with their special menus, is available on the Chamber’s website at ahchamber.com and on the Olde Town Covington website. Each restaurant’s menu can be accessed by clicking its icon on the page, allowing diners to plan their meals in advance.
To maximize exposure without placing any financial burden on participating restaurants, organizers have also arranged a segment on WDBJ7’s “Seven at Four” program and enlisted Roanoke-based food influencer Hello Roanoke — who boasts more than 60,000 followers on Facebook alone — to visit various restaurants and create content throughout the event.
Taylor said the influencer partnership could help attract visitors from the broader Roanoke market, potentially turning first-time diners into repeat visitors to the Alleghany Highlands.
Griffin encouraged residents to venture beyond their usual favorites and try something new, noting that many restaurants have created special menu items they have never offered before.
“Just take this initiative and visit places,” Griffin said. “Go in and meet someone new, find somewhere good to eat.”
Taylor echoed the sentiment, urging residents to consider dining out earlier in the week rather than waiting for the typical Thursday-through-Saturday rush — particularly given the impact recent winter weather has had on local businesses.
“Let’s uplift our restaurant community,” Taylor said. “There’s 23 different restaurants on there. There’s something for every palate.”
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Transcript (auto generated by AI)
Josh Taylor 0:02
Anything from, you know, a grab and go kind of whities. We all love whities. I love grew up with a burger baskets. Yeah, I get my breakfast there almost every Saturday morning. And you’ve got that, you’ve got, you’ve got sit down restaurants, you’ve got to go places like a tropical spice, you can get coffee. Shops are involved where, like a lyrics cafe, you can get, you know, coffee and a sweet treat. You can get fresh donuts. There’s a donut special at hot stuff across, across the way, you can go to mountain field market and get these fresh, freshly baked pepperoni rolls and sauce. I mean, that’s a grab and go. You can go and sit down and sit down and have a great lunch at like, a 42 Deli. There’s really just this great variety of everything you could possibly do. You want something to go? There’s somebody multiple on that list. You want to go have a nice sit down dinner. The friendly fork is opening up and having sit down dinners. And they’re normally a caterer, right? So they’re opening up and having dinner during Restaurant Week, which is so cool. They’re taking reservations for that. And so not only you have this incredible variety, but there’s, there’s a restaurant represented in every single locality in the Alleghany. Yeah.
Gene Mundy 1:16
Welcome back, everyone to the value proposition podcast today. We’re here with Afton Griffin from the Old Town, Covington, and Josh Taylor from the Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, we’re going to talk about something really that hits home for everybody, and that is the first ever Restaurant Week, correct? Afton, could you tell us a little bit about that?
Afton Griffin 1:38
Yes, we’re having our first Alleghany Holland’s Restaurant Week. It’s February 20 through March 1. There are a lot of restaurants that are participating. So everybody needs to come out and enjoy the taste of Alleghany Allen’s, yeah, across the entire county, across the entire county. Andft
Gene Mundy 1:57
so that’s Alleghany county, city of Covington, Clifton Forge, Iron Gate, yes, sir, yeah. How many restaurants do you think are participating?
Afton Griffin 2:06
There are 23 of them.
Gene Mundy 2:09
23 opportunities to get out in the community and support a local business. Josh, how does that play into our greater Chamber of Commerce small business strategy?
Josh Taylor 2:21
Yeah. I mean, we, we live to support small business. That is what we’re here for. And I think a big thing of it is this time of year. It’s a slow time for restaurants. You see communities across the country trying to do restaurant weeks during the slow months of the year, it’s, it’s hard for people to go outside when it’s getting dark at five o’clock and it’s 20 degrees, and it’s just when you get home, you want to stay home. And so this is an effort to get people out of their comfort zone and get them out into the community at our restaurants during a slow time, to help build up some support for them during this time. And I think that that’s a great way we got all kinds of really exciting things going. But we really are encouraging the community to come out and support our local restaurants during their slow time and really uplift them as we move into the spring.
Gene Mundy 3:07
Yeah, how does small business, or how do restaurants fit into the really the small business, you know, network here in our community,
Josh Taylor 3:18
yeah, I mean small businesses. And I mean, restaurants are incredibly important to small business. And you know, they’re filled throughout many of our downtowns and our communities, meals tax, if you think about that, that is so important to just economic impact in your community, even from locals, or when you have visitors come in. I mean, those are people that when visitors come here, they have to, they’re going to get something to eat and for them to support our restaurants. It really just adds to that positive economic impact that we’re really trying to push in our community. And then everything that we do, we are trying to uplift all businesses, but restaurants are obviously very much a part of that, and we’re very involved in what they’re doing and doing our best to support them in every way that we possibly can.
Gene Mundy 4:00
Yeah, so Afton, it really the Old Town Covington Restaurant Week isn’t really about a promotion. It’s really about helping our small business owners keep the lights on.
Afton Griffin 4:12
That’s correct. Yeah, it’s historically known that that winter time is slower, you know, like Josh said, so our Restaurant Week is designed to keep the lights on, to extend out payroll, to support the staff that they already have in place, to continue to work through the winter months.
Gene Mundy 4:29
Yeah, I think, you know, we were talking before we got started, and it’s 23 different restaurants spread over the entire county. You know, I think people kind of have their favorites. Maybe they’re they’re happy with, you know, Italian, or maybe it’s Mexican or whatever. But here’s an opportunity maybe, to get out to a restaurant you maybe haven’t been to before. Any thoughts about that?
Afton Griffin 4:55
Yeah, I think that that’s a huge goal of ours, to get people to try new things, to get their restaurants that have created brand new specials that they’ve never offered before, just just to get new people in the door and to get people involved with, you know, their their future. So I think that is crucial for the success of this.
Josh Taylor 5:13
Restaurant owners have gotten really creative with their specials,
Gene Mundy 5:16
really different menu items. And we were chatting. Tell me about the passport. We were talking about passports, you know, before we got started, and how neat it is. New, new idea. But, yeah, can you tell me about that?
Josh Taylor 5:36
So it was an idea. One of our staff members is on the board of the Clinton forge School of the Arts. And when they had their Chris Kendall market festival, they she had created a passport. So it was a way for the to get people at that festival into the local community. And we kind of took that same process here. We were like, What can we do to incentivize people to not just go out and eat once during Restaurant Week, but to eat several times during Restaurant Week and support several businesses. And so we are going to provide every participating restaurant with a passport, tangible passport, and then we’re going to provide each restaurant with a different sticker that’s specific to their restaurant. And so all people need to do when they dine out at a restaurant during Restaurant Week is get their passport and request that sticker for that restaurant. And then what we’re going to do at the end of Restaurant Week, we’re going to ask everyone who participated, residents to turn in their passports to the Chamber of Commerce, and then what we will do is every sticker you have that is a chance into a drawing for numerous gift cards and prizes and things like that. So it’s really just trying to incentivize the community to get out and support, not just one restaurant, but numerous ones. And it makes it puts a little fun spin on it. It makes it fun to be able to, you kind of got a passport. You’re traveling in a way, yeah, but you’re just traveling between restaurants. And like I said, each restaurant will have a specific sticker, so the it will be easy easily tell where you went. And again, like I said, it’ll be, you’ll be eligible for a lot of really cool prizes.
Gene Mundy 7:01
Yeah, if it involves stickers, my second grader is there, right? If we can get some Dora they explore, you know, or bluey stickers to go with it, she’ll be, she’ll be set. How often? How do we get the restaurants, you know? How do we identify the restaurants to participate?
Afton Griffin 7:18
So we have each restaurant will have information in their on their window and in their building, and we will also share all of those details on the Chamber’s website, Olde Town covington’s website. Actually, they’re they’re listed now you can go and see them. Now we will push that a little bit more for promotion wise, once those once the week gets closer, yeah. And it’ll be on the passport too, yeah.
Josh Taylor 7:44
And so, like, I have to mention the website it’s on. It lives on the chamber site and also on olde town’s, and I believe the Town of Clifton forges as well. So you can access it from multiple different places. But the cool thing about it is, all you have to do is scroll down and there’s a little block icon for every participating restaurant. If you click on that, it just automatically opens up their menu. So you can plan out your dinners well with well in advance. You know exactly what restaurants are having. And so you can all 23 of them are on there. And so you can they’re all very different and unique in their own ways. And so that’s a really good, cool tool. The chamber’s website’s ahchamber.com, it’s on our Facebook. We’ve got multiple posts out there, and we’ll continue to do that, but that’s a great way to check out ahead of time, so you’re just not surprised at what you can do. Some planning.
Gene Mundy 8:31
Yeah, restaurants didn’t have to participate, right? They chose to. And you know, how what kind of response did you get back? You know, from your outreach, when the idea first came about,
Afton Griffin 8:43
We have had a lot of positive I’ve had many things. I’ve had people come in to see me, and they just are coming in to say, hey, we really think this is a great idea. We really appreciate it. So I think that it’s going to be, I think it’s impacted them positively already, and then the the excitement is just going to continue to grow, and the success is going to be there. Yeah,
Gene Mundy 9:08
we were chatting a little bit before we started, and you mentioned, you know, a unique promotional type approach that we’re taking. I don’t know whether you can share that yet, but can you give us a little hint?
Josh Taylor 9:20
Yeah, I’m happy to share as part of this we, you know, all of us collectively that have been planning this was like, How can we maximize the exposure of this initiative without putting any cost on our participating restaurants? We wanted to make this like free to them and let us just do everything we can to promote it. Obviously, we’re doing these exciting things, like this great podcast and things locally, but we are going to be on seven at four with WDBJ seven next week, talking about it. So when we were hitting that Roanoke market, and we’re really excited to be bringing the foodie influencer out of Roanoke. Hello, Roanoke. She’s got 60 plus 1000 followers, I believe, just on Facebook. She’s got Tiktok and Instagram, but she is coming over and getting a bunch of content at various restaurants, and she’s going to post that throughout Restaurant Week, so hopefully that we can attract a large market outside the area in that Roanoke region, come over and have dinner here in the Alleghany Highlands. And I think that will be a great way to reach a new audience, reach visitors, and maybe turn those into repeat visitors who make a trip over here a few times a month. Yeah, that’s a great concept, Josh.
Gene Mundy 10:26
And if you think about, if you look at our community, is part of a, you know, regional, you know, environment. A lot of us go, you know, we go to Roanoke, maybe we’re going shopping. We stop and eat, we come home, right? This is kind of a reverse scenario, right? There’s a lot. I mean, how many people live in Roanoke? What’s the number? Couple 100,000 folks in Botetourt County, at least, at least come to our community, see what we have to offer. And I think that that’s a great marketing, you know, effort to get in, to get into that, you know, that community talk about what we have to offer. And, you know, let’s reciprocate the money we spend there by spending it here in our with our businesses.
Josh Taylor 11:14
Yeah, and I’ll say, as I mentioned before, the the menus of all these restaurants are so unique. There’s so many different offerings. And when we were talking with the Hello Roanoke, she said, I want to spotlight some things that we may not be able to get over here in Roanoke all the time. And that way people be like, oh, I want to go try that. That’s new and different. So she’s going to all these different places and spotlighting just unique things. And so hopefully that will again be an additional pool to bring people, yeah?
Gene Mundy 11:42
So we’re, you know, of the 23 businesses, we’re not just talking about sit down restaurants, but there’s, you know, it’s really a wide, you know, what’s the right word? I’m looking for a wide angle of different kind of food, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, tell me about that, yeah. I mean, anything and you feel free to jump in, please.
Josh Taylor 12:09
Anything from, you know, a grab and go, kind of whities. We all love, whities. I love, grew up with a burger basket, yeah?
Gene Mundy 12:19
Please. I’ve
Josh Taylor 13:32
anything from, you know, a grab and go kind of whities. We all love whities. I love grew up with a burger basket. Yeah, I get my breakfast there almost every Saturday morning. And you’ve got that, you’ve got, you’ve got sit down restaurants, you’ve got to go places like a tropical spice you can get coffee shops are involved where, like a lyrics cafe, you can get, you know, coffee and a sweet treat. You can get fresh donuts. There’s a donut special at hot stuff across, across the way, you can go to mountain field market and get these fresh, freshly baked pepperoni rolls and sauce. I mean, that’s a grab and go. You can go and sit down and have a great lunch at like, a 42 Deli. There’s really just this great variety of everything you could possibly do. You want something to go, there’s somebody multiple on that list. You want to go have a nice sit down dinner. The friendly fork is opening up and having sit down dinners. And they’re normally a caterer, right? So they’re opening up and having dinner during Restaurant Week, which is so cool.
Josh Taylor 13:21
They’re taking reservations for that. And so not only do you have this incredible variety, but there’s, there’s a restaurant represented in every single locality in the Alleghany. Yeah, I get my breakfast there almost every Saturday morning. And you’ve got that, you’ve got you’ve got sit down restaurants. You’ve got to go places like a tropical spice you can get coffee shops are involved where, like a lyrics cafe, you can get, you know, coffee and a sweet treat you can get.
Gene Mundy 15:47
How can our community, the people of our community, help make this successful? Get out and eat. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, planning ahead is probably a great idea.
Afton Griffin 15:47
Visit somewhere new. I think that, you know, we all have our favorite locations of you know, depending on breakfast, lunch and dinner, we all have our favorites, but trying something new at those places is going to be crucial for success as well. Yeah, I’m excited to try. Yeah, I think just
Josh Taylor 15:47
really getting out and so and during earlier in the week too. We all think about a Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Those are, those are prime dine out nights, but if we all don’t feel like cooking on a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday,
Josh Taylor 15:47
so it’s a perfect time. It’s like it’s something special. Let’s go out and let’s enjoy let’s support a business in Restaurant Week. And there are Tuesday specials too. Yeah, so there’s specials. We just want everybody to get out and support this community during a slow time. Let’s, let’s uplift a restaurant community, yeah, after the past few weeks with the weather and in the ice and how that impacted, you know, ability to travel or parking or, you know, I’m sure they can use it. I’m sure that our business owners can use that, that that surge. Yeah. So Afton, what is? What is, does success look like? What what are we trying to achieve at the end of this? So success would be supporting our restaurants,
Afton Griffin 15:47
having them with some foot traffic increase in that it would be, it would look like, keeping payroll a little bit longer. Look like, you know, these people live in our area. They they invested in our area, in the community, and I think it’s important for us to reinvest into them. We’re not we’re not talking big restaurants. We’re talking mom and pop, locally owned people we our kids play sports with people that we walk by on the streets. So I think, you know that’s important that we support our people. Yeah, that’s a I think that’s the powerful message to take away. This is more than just what you’re having for dinner or breakfast or lunch. It’s about helping our community continue to to not just survive, but thrive, and small business owners live,
Gene Mundy 15:47
you know, I hate to say it, they live month to month. You know, nobody’s making a fortune in today’s economy. So every meal you go and eat in a restaurant, every every time you have the opportunity, helps a family. It helps a business owner. It puts, you know, goes right back into the community, goes right back in the community, because they’re going to turn right around and invest that capital into
Josh Taylor 15:47
pick it these people that are sponsoring teams and events and supporting nonprofits and doing all the things locally. And so we want to show up big for them. Yeah, and nobody sees the
Afton Griffin 15:47
business owner in their restaurant space at 330 or four o’clock in the morning, and then closing up shop at 10 o’clock. So that it is huge, it’s huge. Yeah, so last words, either both, either or last words go out and eat right? Now, you know, just, just take this initiative and this collaboration with all of us and visit places, go in and meet someone new, find somewhere good to eat. They’re all delicious. I mean, I think it’s going to be huge. Just just show up. So I’d say this is a positive.
Josh Taylor 15:47
Thing this is, this is weird. Just solely out. We just want to help and uplift, and we want to get people out into the community and see, there’s a lot of great places to eat here. Try something new. And honestly, check out the website. There’s 23 different restaurants on there. There’s a variety that there’s something for every palette, basically. And so I think it’s going to open eyes to see like, what’s really out there, and also show off just the creativity the customer service and just how good some of our restaurant owners and employees are in our community.
Gene Mundy 20:33
Yeah, we’re looking forward to it. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having us.
