This past October saw thousands of food lovers indulge in one of the Cayman Islands’ most notable culinary events, the Cayman Islands Restaurant Month. The Cayman Islands Tourism Association (CITA) organised its largest Restaurant Month to date, with a total of 37 participating restaurants from across the island collectively offering over 55 menus for lunch, dinner and Signature Brunches.

Jay Ehrhart, Executive Director of CITA, shared that the association is proud to see how successful this year’s event was at showcasing the local food and beverage sector.

“Restaurant Month is a unique event that takes the best that Cayman’s culinary scene has to offer by allowing residents and visitors to get a proper taste of the vast flavours, talent and culinary artistry that can be found right here in the Cayman Islands,” said Mr Ehrhart. “There was certainly an extra buzz around Restaurant Month this year, especially with our borders open again, and I truly commend the efforts of the restaurants, culinary teams, sponsors and our patrons for making this year’s event a tremendous success.”

One of the primary goals of Restaurant Month is to support local restaurants and generate an influx of returning customers by spotlighting these businesses and the high calibre of food and service they offer. This was achieved by creating dining experiences with affordable three-course menus that demonstrate each restaurant’s cuisine.

One of the participating restaurants this year, The Edgy Vedge, a newly launched plant-based eatery and marketplace, experienced a high volume of patrons who chose to dine using the designated Restaurant Month menu.

“We’ve prepared almost 200 meals for Restaurant Month, and as a brand-new restaurant that only opened two and a half months ago, to be able to participate in something like this – it’s been incredible,” said Sian Weinzweig, Co-Founder & Marketing Director.

“The people who have come by to try it out have definitely been a mix of vegan and non-vegan, so we really thank the organisers for allowing us to be involved. It’s been a great initiative.”

Several other participating restaurants reported they experienced a high volume of customers last month, such as Bayside, which also hosted its first sold-out Signature Brunch this past weekend.

Though the restaurants are the foundation of Restaurant Month, the support of the sponsors is crucial to the event’s success. This year’s Gold sponsors included Loop Cayman, DMS Broadcasting, Tower Marketing, Cayman Islands Department of Tourism and Ministry of Financial Services and Commerce. There were also two Silver sponsors, Home Gas and CaymanRestaurants.com.

Hon Katherine Ebanks-Wilks, MP and Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Financial Services and Commerce, described Restaurant Month as both an opportunity to support local businesses and to demonstrate to the rest of the world the strength of our commercial infrastructure.

“For us at the Ministry of Financial Services, we are of the view that a robust local business sector also compliments and enhances our international reputation as a commercially-stable place to do business” she said.

“Government’s support of initiatives such as Restaurant Month is intended to help local restaurant owners navigate through the tough economic challenges many of them face. This sector provides an array of goods and services as well as employment opportunities for Caymanians, so it was important for this Ministry to be a part of this amazing initiative.”

CITA looks forward to making this event even bigger and better in 2023 and encourages local businesses and restaurants that would like to get involved to contact info@restaurantmonth.ky.