The City of Toronto has revealed details of its recent ‘Food is King’ promo, a two-week campaign where it partnered with local food ordering app, Ritual, to offer discounts at restaurants in the King Street West area, during the King Street Pilot Project.

The campaign was a partnership between the City of Toronto, the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA), to help businesses during the King Street pilot.

According to the city, the promo—which ran from February 20 to March 4—involved 52 businesses and saw 19,863 customers make their first purchase at a King Street restaurant, with a total of 27,288 additional orders placed at participating restaurants, compared with the weekly average prior to the promo.

Participating restaurants saw a $426,005 sales increase compared with the weekly average prior to the ‘Food is King’ promo, while Ritual saw 6,995 new customers join their platform and seven new King Street restaurants sign on.

The City invested $164,470, while an additional $100,000 was spent by Ritual to offer food credits.

“Ritual is proud to be a King Street business and welcomed the opportunity to work with the City of Toronto and TABIA to help introduce thousands of new customers to our incredible restaurant partners,” said Elynn Tucker, General Manager of Ritual for Toronto, in a press release.

Councillor Michael Thompson (Ward 37 Scarborough Centre), Chair of the City’s Economic Development Committee, said in a statement, “This partnership with TABIA and Ritual demonstrated an innovative new approach to promoting King Street businesses as we make sure this pilot achieves all our goals, including maintaining the street’s economic vibrancy.”

According to the city, “participating merchants saw a sustained sales increase through April.”

The King Street Pilot, which is between Bathurst Street and Jarvis Street, debuted in November 2017 and prioritizes transit street cars for improved traffic flow, by not allowing private vehicles to go through intersections, but rather turn right only at every block.