HKTWN Restaurant Events
We're preparing for two big Restaurant Events for HKTWN! Which Restaurants would YOU like to see participate in 'Passport to HKTWN' Restaurant Week July 18 - 28 and the 'Autumn Lamplight Dinner' September 8th?
http://www.hackettstownbid.com/restaurants/
Wendy @ Hkt BID 
joyful 
town shopper 
jrsemom 
sunny 
Lobo So far for Restaurant Week we have the following confirmed!
Still reaching out so the list will certainly grow!
Prickly Pear - 80-30 Main St. - (908) 979-0003
The Grove Gourmet Deli - 516 Willow Grove St. - (908) 452-5905
Marley's Gotham Grill - 169 Main St. - (908) 852-2446
Pandan Room - 100 East Moore St. - (908) 850-5999
TOPO 'The Old Post Office' - 218 Main St. - (908) 850-5888
Joyful - Sorry, but Hong Kong Palace declined :(
http://www.hackettstownbid.com/news/2014/6/passport-to-hktwn-restaurant-week
wonderful wonderful - That's Mansfield, not Hackettstown.
Mezza is the place next to Stella G's and that's a definite that should be on the wish list.
I'd love to see David's participate at least in the dinner one.
Ashley's would be very nice outside at night.
For other passports, definitely Leo's, Mama's, Greene's Beans, Harpers, Philly Pretzel, Main St Ice Cream, Sub Shack, and Enzo's.
GC So, some of your wishes are coming true:
So Far for Restaurant Week:
Prickly Pear - 80-30 Main St. - (908) 979-0003
The Grove Gourmet Deli - 516 Willow Grove St. - (908) 452-5905
Marley's Gotham Grill - 169 Main St. - (908) 852-2446
Pandan Room - 100 East Moore St. - (908) 850-5999
TOPO 'The Old Post Office' - 218 Main St. - (908) 850-5888
C & L Subs N Grub - 127B Main St. - (908) 269-8164
Mezza House - 190 Main St. - (908) 269-8141
Philly Pretzel Factory - 150 Mountain Ave. - (908) 269-8780
botheredbyuu2 
ianimal The Enzo's in Hackettstown is this one -
http://www.hackettstownbid.com/restaurants/enzos-pizzeria
Across from M&M.
The Enzo's on 57 is outside of Hackettstown City Limits.
Nice work, Wendy! Great list so far.
I would like to add - if anyone hasn't tried the relatively new Mezza House yet, I would definitely recommend it. Lovely people, atmosphere and food. Can't wait to get back there for dinner.
Rebecka What's the autumn lamplight dinner? That sounds neat! (And right before my birthday!!)
Njchia Njchia - it's a new event and we're still working out some of the details - as soon as I get everything confirmed, I'll be able to tell more - BUT, there will be Live Music, our best restaurant menus, cash bar, linens and china - a delightful evening under the stars. We are so excited that we have so many fantastic restaurants and such a wonderful variety to offer!
trekster3- Passport to HKTWN Restaurant Week Update:
Participating Restaurants to date:
Prickly Pear - 80-30 Main St. - (908) 979-0003
The Grove Gourmet Deli - 516 Willow Grove St. - (908) 452-5905
Marley's Gotham Grill - 169 Main St. - (908) 852-2446
Pandan Room - 100 East Moore St. - (908) 850-5999
TOPO 'The Old Post Office' - 218 Main St. - (908) 850-5888
C & L Subs N Grub - 127B Main St. - (908) 269-8164
Mezza House - 190 Main St. - (908) 269-8141
Philly Pretzel Factory - 150 Mountain Ave. - (908) 269-8780
Ashley's Restaurant - 229 Main St. - (908) 979-1550
Sub Shack & Deli - 312 Main St. - (908) 852-6677
Stella G's - 186 Main St. - (908) 813-0625
Mamas Restaurant & Cafe Baci - 260 Mountain Ave. - (908) 852-2820
Bea McNally's Irish Pub - 109 Grand Ave. - (908) 813-1900
Frank's Trattoria - 80-70 Main St. - (908) 852-2405
Hong Kong Palace - 192 Mountain Ave. - (908) 850-4212
http://www.hackettstownbid.com/news/2014/6/passport-to-hktwn-restaurant-week
Okay Restaurant Lovers, here's the last update pre-event!
Passports are now available at the BID office and they will be getting delivered to the participating restaurants today. You can also pick them up at the Moore Street Market on Saturday.
We have a new record 17 Restaurants participating, some of them have special offers for Passport holders, so don't forget to ask your server!
Need more info - just head to the BID website!
http://www.hackettstownbid.com/news/2014/6/passport-to-hktwn-restaurant-week
And most of all don't forget to go out and have your special Passport Photo taken.
I know I got mine.
FYI - Passports have been delivered to all of the participating restaurants. Pick yours up so that you're ready on Friday to enjoy your culinary journey through HKTWN!
Going to be hard to get to 17 restaurants in one week! Oh, the burden of choice. I'm amazed at how many wonderful, diverse places to eat we have in our little town. We are really lucky.
Rebecka - It's 10 days since it covers the two weekends and the days between. So that's not even 2 a day. ;-)
I did 12 out of 13 last year, why have to choose. ;-)
maja Almost 2 restaurants a day, GC... how much weight do you want me to gain?! :-P
Seriously, I do hope to make it to many of them. Not sure I can approach your total of 12 restaurants visited last year, though! Way to support our local establishments.
Rebecka - all of them have salads or other weight conscious choices. No excuses. ;-)
maja - The BID info trekster3 quoted says some of them will.
What's the big deal that Enzo's Pasta Grill is outside of Hackettstown? When time comes for donations to the Hackettstown Schools or the Hackettstown youth sports teams I am sure you don't take that into consideration.
Hot under the collarHot under the collar - The event is run by the BID. Pasta Grill by Enzo is not in the district and doesn't pay into the organization. It's no more or less than that.
CrazyDogLadyyy Apparently some nameless person (hint, hint "Vulcan nerve pinch") has given out instructions to beware the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
My cover is blown! So much for the element of surprise. ;-)
Wendy - The passport says the drawing is 7/29, but the rules on the BID website say 7/31. Which is it? Thanks
Calico696 Wendy is on vacation so I will answer for her. The winners will be announced at the 7/29 summer concert series
darwin Hmmmm, interesting darwin. That's not what is says in the rules.
http://www.hackettstownbid.com/docs/2014-restaurant-week-rules.pdf
It says, "Contestants should return or mail their passport to the BID Office by Wednesday, July 30th, 2014 at 3:00 pm to be entered in the contest. Entrants may also turn in their passports to the BID representative at the Moore Street Market on Saturday, July 26th, 2014 10:00 am–2:00 pm."
It also says, "On THURSDAY, JULY 31st, 2014 one (1) winner will be selected. A random drawing will pick the winner. The winner will be notified FRIDAY, AUGUST 1st, 2014 and announced by the Hackettstown BID."
Definitely conflicting info here.
BTW - I tried calling the phone number on the BID website and nothing happens. It doesn't even connect.
I will verify it, but as far as I know the drawing is Thursday July 31. You notice the other dates are wrong, but it always says Thursday. The original intent may have been to announce at the concert, but it's too soon to have all the entries in. Last I heard the announcement was going to be made on the radio, not at the concert.
But like I said I can verify. Nothing but voicemail at the BID office at the moment, I believe the director is out for a bit, and as mentioned Wendy is on vacation.
A Gentleman was on RNJ this morning and said winner would be announced at the concert.
Clyde Potts LOL Clyde he plot thickens......
The reason it's important to me is that we plan on dining somewhere in H'town tomorrow night. BID is closed on Sunday and there is no way I can get there on Monday. My intention was to mail the passport in. I figured if I mailed it on Monday, it would definitely be there by the Wednesday deadline.
If the drawing is on Tuesday, when is the deadline to turn them in? Monday? That doesn't make much sense as Monday the last date to get stickers. Wouldn't some people still want to use it Monday night for dinner?
The official rules say it has to be postmarked Monday. If they received one in the mail on Wed they'd be in trouble if they drew it on Tues. Yes, they did day on the radio the plan for a Tues drawing and announcement at the concert. But the email reply I got said it looks like they have to rethink that with the announcement next Fri on the radio instead of the Tue concert.
Does anyone know if we can drop our Passports in the mail slot at the BID office at 219 Main Street? We walked up to the Farmers Market but didn't notice a BID booth, and we will be unable to go to the BID office during their hours.
MO H'town MO H'town - Good question. I was wondering if they had a mail slot or an actual mailbox. If it's a mail slot, that would be great as I could drop it in tonight after dinner. Otherwise, I'm going to bring a stamped envelope with me and drop it in the mailbox right at the H'town PO.
The market doesn't have a booth per se but the director (or the assistant) walks around checking up with people. He's the guy with the clipboard.
Yes, the passports can be put in the slot if it's after hours.
Thanks, GC! I will walk up later tonight and drop my Passport in their mail slot (yes, Calico, it is a mail a lot in the door - I looked this morning). It was a fun activity/excuse to eat at all out local restaurants.
I have an issue with my passport. We got ours at Marley's on Monday and the waitress at first had no idea what we were talking about, even though they had a sign by the door about it. She did go and find out and brought us our passport and said that the sticker on the side was their sticker. It was not. It was the sticker that the BID put on all the passports, we now know. Marley's never put their own sticker on. Can we still get credit for that visit? I saved the receipt. Should we go back to Marley's with it? I'm afraid they will look at me like I'm an alien again like when I asked for the passport in the first place.
Tracy We ate at Marley's on Friday and our server knew what the passport was and put a sticker on it.
smilingbecs The bar tender at Marley's knew as well when I got take out Friday. A couple of the bigger places have enough staff that sometimes they don't all get trained on it. As suggested, I would just go back to Marley's and they should take care of it.
But I will say this year in that regard they were all a lot more prepared that last year. This time all but one knew what it was right off, many saw "blue" in my hand and went right for the stickers before I could even ask.
I agree GC. We had no issues at all getting stickers. Dropped my passport in the mail slot of the BID last night as suggested here. Thanks again.
We had no trouble at the other establishments we visited. It was only after we got new stickers that we realized we didn't get the Marley's sticker. We're going to go back tomorrow. Can you get two stickers for the same place?
Hi folks! Thanks GC and Darwin for fielding the questions!!
Calico I will take a look for your passport when I get to the office later :) - I can't wait to see all of the restaurants you went to!
Tracy, Yes, you can get as many stickers from the same restaurant as you can - if you eat there every day for the entire program you can certainly have 10 stickers at one place.
Yes, the drawing is on Thursday to be announced on the the Friday Radio Show - Sorry for the confusion.
It's nice to see the enthusiasm build for the event!
Did anyone try a restaurant they hadn't before?
Thanks Wendy. We actually only made it to two places. LOL Wish we didn't have so much other stuff going on over the last week and a half.
We did get to try TOPO and it was fantastic.
It's a shame the restaurants don't mention this when you're there. I didn't read this thread till just now and ate at two participating restaurants last week. Neither one said a word.
MB I agree, MB...we had a few on our card that we had stopped at and they never mentioned this promotion when we were there. I also dropped our card off at the BID office mail slot yesterday with not as many stickers on it than should have been. Good luck, everyone!!!
A suggestion for next year: Post a bold print notice on the restaurant entry door that says something like: Ask About the PASSPORT and be sure to present it to your SERVER to be STAMPED for entry into the RESTAURANT WEEK CONTEST.
Mrs. Pipes The BID went to every restaurant and asked them to make sure they are giving the passports to everyone that came in, even the ones that didn't spend the required $10 to get a stamp. It's disappointing that some didn't do that. Thanks for the imput.
Calico - Passport Received!
FYI - I visited all of the restaurants before the week giving them the instructions and info to share with their staff. We gave all of the restaurants a sign to post in the same color paper as the passport saying ' Do you need your Passport Stamped?' with the information. And Jim had 500 more passports made for Restaurants to distribute.
It'll be interested to see how many we get back.
So far we have 6, but today is the last day so Eat, Eat, Eat!
Any reason why the Passport promotion/contest couldn't be ran over the course of a full month?
D-ManPV Most restaurant weeks only last 7 days and just now some are starting to run longer - we run ours 10 days to create a sense of urgency and to fit in with the vacation schedules of some of our more popular restaurants. I'll pose the question to the event committee when we next meet.
Does any one have any other suggestions for 2015 Restaurant Week?
I'm wondering if perhaps May or June would be better months for the Restaurant week or 10 days or 2 weeks to be run. July is such a big month for folks being away on vacation ... just a thought. We frequent quite a few of the restaurants on the pass, but during the July time frame we were unable to get to as many as we would have liked. I will be dropping off my passport today:))
@ Wendy - thank you for the response. I understand the idea of trying to have a week (or 10 days) so that there would be some excitement and a rush of people going out to eat in the town.
From a consumer standpoint, it can be difficult due to work and vacation schedules as well as budgeting to try and fit in a bunch of meals out in 10 days.
Mrs. Pipes - Restaurant weeks are usually run when restaurants are slower, like the Summer - In the south there are many in January and February (some northern towns do it then too, but we didn't want to run into weather issues). So the timing is by design both to boost business for the restaurants and for people to enjoy the restaurants when they're not as crowded.
Thanks D-ManPV, I'll pass your comments along.
The winning ticket has entered the building... ;-)
All I know is my freezer is full and I'll plan how to consume it later. So endeth the adventures of C B Lagoon. Brrruupp. [excuse me]
LOL, GC! I thought I had already submitted the winning ticket :). I wish I had known we could get more than one stamp from a restaurant. We are in Franks at least once a week. Franks was our first stop, and they were clueless. Luckily I noticed the blue sign on the door and saw a stack of blue folded papers near the cash register, and was able to get the cashier to give me one. He almost just initialized it, rather than getting a sticker but he figured it out. Marleys was the only place that actually offered us a Passport, but we already had it. No where else said a word - we just left our Passport with our payment and it came back with our sticker. It was a fun excuse to eat out. It was just hard for 2 of us to spend $10 at some places, like Philly Pretzel Factory (but we persevered and accomplished the task!) or even Franks. Thanks, BID and all the local restaurants that participated!
We went back to Marley's and got stickers for tonight and last week. Our server even offered to collect our passport but we just walked it down to the BID office ourselves.
Wendy, we got lunch at the Sub Shack on Saturday, a restaurant we had never been to before.
GC, did you hit them all??
Tracy - It's a tough job, but *somebody* has to do it. My dance card is full. ;-)
By the way, you just haven't lived until you had a Sub Shack Roundhouse. One of those things will feed a family of four.
We ate at Bea's on the first night of restaurant week unknowingly, but they had a stack of passports at the entrance so that's how I picked mine up. I didn't eat at some places because I knew I couldn't spend at least $10 on myself. (Well, I could have....)
We ate at Ashley's for the first time. It was pretty tasty. We'll head back for sure.
We have received quite a few passports in the office already!
Thanks for the enthusiasm - Remember in the office by Weds. at 3:00 pm.
Alas, only 1 with a passport photo!
oh nuts, i thought passports had to be in by tues and couldnt get it dropped off in time. had I paid attention I could have turned mine in by weds. now it sits here with me at work and I wont get to hackettstown before 3. o well. :( only had 5 stickers. but we enjoyed our meals out and will do again next year.
I missed the Bid show Friday on WRNJ and think that was the day they were to announce the winner for Restaurant week. Did anyone hear yet who won?
So, now that everyone enjoyed 'Passport to HKTWN Restaurant Week' (oh and Barbara Biamonte was the winner) - we're coming up on the Autumn Lamplight Dinner - Great Food, Great Music, Cash Bar!
Tickets include the entertainment and all food and can be purchased at all of the participating restaurants as well as the BID office and you can even buy them online.
We are selling a limited number so you don't want to miss out!
Thanks as always for supporting our great restaurants.
http://www.hackettstownbid.com/news/2014/7/autumn-lamplight-dinner-sept-8th
Wendy - You might want to start a new thread for the dinner, so it doesn't get hidden here. Just a thought. Thanks, as always, for keeping us updated.
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