A Week of Winter Bites

Windsor residents have taken advantage of a local event to get a three course meal for a low price.

In 2019 WindsorEats celebrated two anniversaries; the 15th year of operation and the 10th year of Winter Bites.

Winter Bites takes place in January and multiple restaurants across Windsor-Essex take part. Each restaurant offers at least one menu at a set price where diners get a three course meal, generally with a choice between one to four dishes per course.

Pina Ciotoli, 45, is the co-owner of WindsorEats along with her brother Adriano. She said while WindsorEats hosts a number of events to work alongside and raise awareness for restaurants, the idea of Winter Bites was designed primarily to help Windsor-Essex restaurants during the January slump.

“You have just gotten off Christmas, people are keeping their money in their pockets and they are taking a break from spending,” Ciotoli said. “We came up with this restaurant week at the slowest time for a restaurant and it became a great event as an influx of economic development for those restaurants. They were seeing people coming in their doors at a time normally they would not.”

This year, 18 restaurants took part with menus ranging from $13 lunches to $38 dinners, but the majority of menus were between $18 and $28.

Santos Ortiz, 39, is the owner Mi Casita where he serves traditional Salvadoran food. He offered an $18 lunch and $28 dinner menu. He said his goal when designing the menus was to give some familiar options but also offer diners lesser known authentic dishes such as chile relleno, a Latin dish of pork stuffed in a poblano pepper and then fried.

“People love our tacos, burritos and enchiladas, so we always want to have those on the menu,” said Ortiz. “We have been able to introduce chile relleno, carne asada and pollo encebollado,  which is very authentic for us and has become popular slowly. You always want to give people something a little bit different.”

The event may be for the benefit of the restaurants but the consumers are given a deal too. All of the three course meals are at a discount compared to their regular menu prices.

For the $18 lunch at Mi Casita one could choose flautas, enchiladas and a deep fried ice cream dessert. The flautas and enchiladas alone would cost $21.75. Diners essentially get their meal at a discount and a free dessert.

If you missed out on your chance to take part in the 10th annual Winter Bites there is another event, Eat Your City, put on during August which offers the same concept of three courses for $13 to $38.

Regardless of if you are a restaurant owner or someone just looking for a cheap meal in the cold weather, Winter Bites helps both sides of the restaurant industry in Windsor-Essex.