All aboard for Restaurant Week(s)

What a difference a day — or at least a few months — makes! Last August, Restaurant Week elicited the usual amount of scorn. “We won’t be doing Restaurant Week,” one new restaurant owner told me. “It doesn’t pay.” Well, this time around he –and almost everyone else –  got on the bandwagon, too fearful of seeing so much as one potential customer going elsewhere. As Babak Bina of the new Bina Osteria, Bin 26, and Lala Rokh told me recently: “The first time, Bin 26 didn’t do it, and we sat around wondering where all the customers were.”

Some things about RW persist: Waiters still complain about low tips — and according to a report sometimes still treat diners disdainfully during  RW. Diners still complain that the offerings are cut-rate. And owners still hope that they can create loyalty –or at least interest in coming back — from those venturing out to eat — some for the first time in months.

Bina Osteria in downtown Boston

The RW menu at Bina Osteria, near the Ritz on the Common, is tailored to the price, $33.09 for three courses (lunch is $20.09). If you have a hankering for the signature quail in hay or a steak dish, which along with a few others have supplemental charges, you could quickly find yourself out of the bargain league. Still, a calamari salad brightened with oranges, a creamy, rich pasta e fagioli, and poached pears made a delicious feast, well worth the money.

Restaurant Week was borne out of the doldrums, first as a New York City travel promotion in summer 1994. Since then, the concept has spread, adding cities, seasons, extra weeks, months, even weekends. Who knows? Maybe our future holds perpetual Restaurant Week.