The sixth annual Downtown Dining Week, in which a number of Downtown restaurants offer fixed priced lunch and dinner menus, returns June 2-9.
Lunches are $10 and there are two tiers of dinner menus: at $20 and $30.
Although no special coupons are required to order from the menus, many of the restaurants fill up fast and organizer Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21 recommends making reservations.
More than 215,000 diners have taken part in the event, which began in 2006. More than half of them said they were first-time visitors to one of the participating restaurants and more than a third did not work Downtown.
"Downtown Dining Week is a great way to kick off the summer," said Beth Nicols, executive director of Milwaukee Downtown. "It gives many restaurants an opportunity to showcase outdoor dining spaces or simply
remind guests to continue patronizing them between all the summer happenings."
Participating restaurants will be announced in April at MilwaukeeDowntown.com/diningweek.
However, last year's participants included: Benihana, Bistro 333, Buca di Beppo, Butch's Old Casino Steakhouse, Café Calatrava, Café at The Pfister, The Capital Grille, Charro, Club Charlies, Coquette Café, Eagan's on Water, Indulge, Joey Buona's Restaurant, Karl Ratzsch's, Kil@wat, The Knick, Libiamo, Louise's, Mader's, Mason Street Grill, Mi•keys, Milwaukee ChopHouse, Molly Cool's Seafood Tavern, Osteria del Mondo, Palms Bistro & Bar, The Red Accordion, RipTide Seafood Bar & Grill, Riverfront Pizzeria Bar & Grill, Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, Sabor, Sake Tumi, Swig, Third Ward Caffè, Tulip Restaurant, Umami Moto, Ward's House of Prime, Water Buffalo and Zarletti.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
