12th Annual Hamden Restaurant Week
October 25, 2022
From Oct. 17 to Oct. 22, numerous restaurants throughout Hamden are participating in the 12 annual Hamden Restaurant Week.
Restaurant week is an annual event in which restaurants set fixed prices for lunch and dinner and showcase their menus.
This year, The Playwright Irish Pub Restaurant is offering their regular menu plus the restaurant week menu which includes a super salad, entree and dessert for 30 dollars.
Eamonn Ryan, owner of The Playwright located on Whitney Avenue, is one of the many restaurant owners participating this year.
The restaurant opened in July of 1999 and Ryan has been running it ever since. He spoke about the restaurant’s Irish heritage.
“If you walk in here, it’s like walking into a bar in Ireland,” Ryan said. “We do a lot of traditional food as well, Irish food, with traditional Irish music and we have Irish music on Saturdays and traditional sessions on Sundays. If you look around here everything you see here came from Ireland; all the furniture, fixtures on the wall, including myself, everything’s Irish.”
Even with its Irish roots, The Playwright has a long history with Hamden.
“Well, we have been involved in everything in Hamden for years and I’ve always done the restaurant week,” Ryan said. “It’s good to be a part of the community and let people know that you’re still here and get the word out again, you know.”
However, many restaurants across the country including The Playwright in Hamden, have faced issues due to inflation and the rising cost of goods.
“The price of the cost of goods has gone through the roof in the last couple of years. Especially in the last year, it kind of, a typical example, something you could’ve gotten a case of something for 30-40 dollars has gone up to 100 dollars,” Ryan said. “It came back down a little bit but never, it never came back down to where it was.”
