Richmond Restaurant Week is here

It's Richmond Restaurant Week — that one week that happens twice a year (in the spring and fall).

What's happening: Spring restaurant week starts today and runs through Sunday.

• This year's 34 participating restaurants have put together three-course menus for $35.23 per person, and $5.23 of every meal will go to Feed More, the local food bank.
• Simply visit any of the participating restaurants and eat.

Why it matters: Restaurant weeks help promote and drive business to Richmond's independently owned restaurants while fundraising for the food pantry.

• And last year, the fundraising hit a major milestone: more than $1 million raised for Feed More since 2001.

Why it's special: Three courses are a leisurely, fantastic way to try a lot of a restaurant's food at once. They also let local chefs get creative with multiple courses.

Pro tips: Reservations are strongly recommended and often easier to find earlier in the week than on Friday and Saturday.

• Your favorite booked solid? Try to slide in at the bar.
• The menus can change during the week as items sell out.
• Not every restaurant participates Monday through Sunday. Most follow their usual operating hours.

Richmond Restaurant Week has been sharing the menus on its Instagram, and you can find them there or on a participating restaurant's social media or website.

Not sure where to go? Our rec is to try somewhere new to you or get geographically frisky and head to a different part of town than your usual haunts.

But, if you're looking for who's new to restaurant week this year: 21 Spoons, JewFro, Kabana and, of course, Acacia — the restaurant that brought the event to Richmond more than two decades ago and that's had to sit out since 2020 until it opened in its new location.