35 restaurants in 2003, over 200 today

Winterlicious and Summerlicious

The city built two prix-fixe dining promotions around the two slowest stretches of the restaurant calendar — and they've grown into an eight-million-meal, $353-million tradition.

A restaurant storefront in downtown Toronto — Downtown Toronto restaurant — Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Winterlicious and Summerlicious are City of Toronto-run prix-fixe dining promotions, launched in 2003 with 35 participating restaurants. Winterlicious runs in the first two weeks of February — historically one of the slowest periods of the year for restaurant business — while Summerlicious runs roughly two to three weeks starting in early July, another seasonal lull.

Hundreds of restaurants, millions of meals

Participating restaurants offer chef-curated three-course, prix-fixe menus at one of several set price points. More than 200 restaurants across the city now participate each edition. City and press figures put the cumulative impact at more than eight million meals served and over $353 million in economic activity generated for Toronto restaurants since the program's 2003 launch.

Sources

City of Toronto — Winterlicious

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