Queen’s Feast, Charlotte’s restaurant week, helps brings business to restaurants in some of their slowest weeks. Drawing in large numbers of diners for a $30 or $35 three-course meal, Queen’s Feast brings restaurants profits through volume and exposure to new diners.

January’s Queen’s Feast, however, will not take place due to the restrictions in place for restaurants during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Bruce Hensley, who owns and runs Queen’s Feast with his wife Jill, the model doesn’t work when seating capacity is limited to 50 percent.

“Along with exposure to new or lapsed diners, the efficacy and return on investment of time, effort, and money that restaurants put into Charlotte Restaurant Week are found through volume – not only lots of butts in seats and prix fixe meals sold over several turns of the restaurant each night, but also alcohol sales, food upsells beyond the prix fixe offering, and related gratuities for servers and bartenders,” Bruce Hensley says. “Unfortunately, that necessary volume is just not possible right now.”

Traditional Queen’s Feast sponsors have also expressed concern about being affiliated with an event that encourages nights out while the county is under a stay-at-home directive.

Hensley says they expect to hold restaurant week over the summer, but won’t make a decision until they feel comfortable with Covid-19 numbers, see increased restaurant seating capacity, and regulations are eased on restaurants. Queen’s Feast typically takes place twice a year, in January and July.

Several cities — including New York — have shifted restaurant week to be a takeout experience, but with slim margins already, the added costs of packaging, and so many diners already ordering takeout, the Hensleys didn’t feel there was enough benefit for restaurants.

“It is incredibly frustrating and scary to put something so important to the restaurants and to us as small business owners on hold, but we’ve tried to keep a level head, thoroughly and continually evaluate the situation as it evolves, and make the correct if difficult decision to do the next one right, rather than attempting something underwhelming that wouldn’t really capture the public’s attention or help the restaurants much,” Hensley says.

Queen’s Feast has grown in popularity since launching more than a decade ago. When they are able to once again host the event, its founders are optimistic that customers will be eager to dine out again, and enthusiastic to take part.

 

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