Twenty-five College Park restaurants are participating in Taste of College Park the week of Jan. 16.

The city’s first restaurant week took place in July. Ryna Quiñones, the city’s communications and events manager, said the event is a way to help local businesses during times when University of Maryland (UMD) students are away on break.

“I don’t want to call them lost months, but [during] those summer and winter months,” Quiñones said, “we want to make sure that we’re helping our businesses through those times and supporting our business community.”

During the week, restaurants are offering special menu items and discounts.

For example, Bagels ’n Grinds, 7777 Baltimore Ave., is offering a free drink with the purchase of a breakfast sandwich, according to Sydney Poretsky, the director of marketing and communications.

At the July Taste of College Park, the city partnered with the company Flave to use its app for the event. Diners posted pictures of their food to the app and earned points to redeem for future visits.

Economic Development Director Michael Williams said the partnership did not continue.

“One of the things we found through the pandemic was you don’t want to overburden your business with too much procedure,” Williams said.

Williams said since the July event, five additional restaurants have joined: Venezuelan restaurant Arepa Zone, Indian restaurant Maryland Tandoor, Samosas & Spirits, Korean restaurant SeoulSpice and Chinese restaurant Eastern Gourmet.

Neel Kamal, the owner of Maryland Tandoor, 8150 Baltimore Ave., said he is offering free mango lassi and chai, and a buy one, get one free deal on samosas. Kamal opened his restaurant in September and said he joined the event to be a part of the community.

“This is my first year,” Kamal said. “I’m not sure how things are but I would like to be a part of this community brand for a very long time.”

Kyle Algaze, the owner of Iron Rooster, 7777 Baltimore Ave., said the restaurant is running two campaigns. The first is a special menu item called Saylor’s Skillet, a spicy egg scramble created in collaboration with University of Maryland women’s basketball guard Saylor Poffenbarger. For the second, Iron Rooster is extending its usual Sunday through Thursday meal deals through the weekend.

“What we really liked about this idea was that it was going to also benefit the residents of College Park,” Algaze said. “So it wasn’t just going to be something that was associated just with the university, which is great, but we really enjoy the fact that we get a lot of local traffic from the members of the community, from the residents of the surrounding communities. So that’s why we wanted to participate.”

Taste of College Park lasts until Jan. 25. The full list of participating restaurants can be found on the College Park Life website.