When Tiffany Thom Kenney, marketing director at Madison Magazine, left Las Vegas in 2006, she brought something back with her. Rather than, say, gambling debt, or a weird rash, or a diamond ring of unknown origin, Kenney carried an idea back to the capital city of America’s Dairyland, one that she’d turn into a full blown event the following year.

Kenney had gone to Las Vegas to attend a conference for members of city and regional publications, and a talk given by another magazine caught her attention.

“I had heard a presentation from San Diego [Magazine], who was doing San Diego Restaurant Week. And we took some of those ideas, that inspiration. And of course, every community – though some of it is the same – there’s always something different or unique,” Kenney said.

Specifically, the Madison market demanded a lower price point for a meal than the $45 offerings in San Diego. Additionally, Kenney made the call to remove any sort of fine dining designation from the participating restaurants, presumably hoping to capitalize on Madison’s burgeoning swath of upscale pub and contemporary American offerings. However, she did elaborate that there are certain standards a Restaurant Week restaurant needs to meet for inclusion.

“The big thing for us is to support as much local business as we can,” Kenney said. “We probably wouldn’t open it up to someone like a Pizza Hut, but otherwise we’re pretty open.”

The magazine’s marketing department approaches some restaurants about participating, while others ask to be included.

“At Madison Magazine we sort of have a good pulse on who and what is going on, about which restaurants would be good for our readers, and for the community. … If we’ve got room for them, and if it fits the mold, they absolutely [can be included],” she said.

The format of the event – six days of participating restaurants overhauling their menus into a three course meal with three choices for each course, all for a predetermined price ($15 for lunch; $25 for dinner) – has remained largely static since 2007. What has changed is the number of options for Madison diners.

“What we’ve done is we’ve added more restaurants. As there are more people who go out to dine, we have to make sure there are enough places to go out. Because a lot of the places, the reservations get full weeks ahead of time,” Kinney said.

Kinney called the event a “win – win – win.” The most obvious beneficiaries, of course, are local foodies and their wallets, plus the owners of restaurants that get weeks of promotion not only in Madison Magazine, but also in other local publications where ad space is available for periods shorter than a month. But Kinney pointed out there’s a third group that comes out ahead during Restaurant Week: the staff and servers at dozens of suddenly-booked restaurants all throughout the isthmus.

“People who are working at the restaurants themselves – their tips are really nice that week. They’re used to working and having maybe five or six tables a night, and now they’re having 15 to 20 tables a night. I think it really helps everybody, and that’s what we like. It’s economic stimulation for the whole community,” she said.

So where does the organizer of Restaurant Week eat during Restaurant Week?

“Oh my goodness, it’s the hardest thing of the whole year,” Kinney said, perhaps in the interest of diplomacy, perhaps spoiled for choice. “We do Restaurant Week in the summer and the winter each year and we spend a lot of time with those menus each year. And it’s always the hardest thing to pick.”

But finally, Kinney relented: “I don’t have a favorite,” she said. “But I am going to make it to both Sardine and 43 North this time around.”