They’re stuffed!

After the first annual Long Island Restaurant Week, patrons are a bit fuller and restaurateurs a bit richer. Through the brainchild of public relations executive Steve Haweeli, 101 Island restaurants offered prix-fixe meals between Nov.5 and 12. The idea was to get diners out during an historically soft business period, and it worked. Participating restaurants brought in about $2.9 million for the week, with some eateries reporting increases of between 40 and 200 percent over the same week in 2005.

John Tunney, owner of Huntington Village’s Blue Honu restaurant, called it the "single-best promotion I’ve ever been involved in." Tunney, like several other Island restaurateurs, even extended the promotion for another week.

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