Looking to try out a new restaurant in town, or perhaps head back to an old favorite? If so, you might want to mark your calendar for the third week of October-a.k.a. Guilford's Restaurant Week.

The initiative, which has restaurants in town presenting special menus and other unique offers from Sunday, Oct. 17 to Saturday, Oct. 23, owed its inception last year to town Economic Development Specialist Jackie Simonetti.

"I kind of modeled it after New Haven's Restaurant Week," said Simonetti. "I felt it was something Guilford would benefit from."

Judging by the town's reception of last year's event, Restaurant Week succeeds admirably at its mission: to boost business at local restaurants while engaging diners with enticing dishes and deals. Both restaurant owners and patrons jumped at the chance to participate.

"Everybody was very positive and very excited about it," said Simonetti.

The specials aren't limited to the dinner menu and the creativity of the individual restaurant owners determines what each restaurant offers.

"It's really whatever the restaurants want to do," said Simonetti.

The prices also vary, so diners can select their budget.

"While New Haven offers one price among all the restaurants, Guilford's restaurants are very diverse," Simonetti said. "Some of them are doing dinners for $20.10 to go along with the year."

At this point, are you wondering if your favorite Guilford restaurant is participating? The answer is yes, as all of the town's 21 restaurants are taking part, allowing you to choose from restaurants lining Route 1 to the historic Green and beyond.

"Everybody's participating and we have a couple new restaurants in Guilford this year, so that will be fun," said Simonetti.

"Very positive feedback" from last year, including reports of people's coming from all over the state, was another reason that Simonetti has hopes that it will continue as an annual event.

"That's one of the reasons we decided to do it again," she said. "The people I talked to that participated were really pleased, not only with the food, but with the pricing as well and the restaurants saw an upsurge in business that week, so they were happy and said it was definitely worth doing.

"We're excited to be sponsoring the event for the second year in a row and we hope that everybody comes out," she said.

Guilford's Restaurant Week takes place from Sunday, Oct. 17 through Saturday, Oct. 23. For more info, call 203-453-8071 or visit the town webpage www.ci.guilford.ct.us.