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Jeri and Mike Benner weren't going to let a blizzard get in the way of their son's dreams.

The Benners, who live in the Spring Ridge subdivision of Frederick, dug out their Suburban and their heavy winter coats and drove downtown so their son, Kevin, 14, could meet Bryan Voltaggio, chef and co-owner of the restaurant Volt.

Voltaggio gained national fame late last year when he finished second in the Bravo television series "Top Chef: Las Vegas." And Kevin, a freshman at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School and an aspiring chef, never missed an episode.

The family had made reservations "a while ago" for Wednesday night, and Mike Benner said he wasn't about to let them go to waste, despite most of Frederick being shut down during the storm.

"You'd think it was Christmas morning, traveling out here to get dinner," Mike Benner said of the family's trip to Volt.

After eating a "great main dish" of Free Bird Farm chicken with forest mushroom risotto, Kevin took a short tour of Volt's kitchen and had his photo taken with Voltaggio. His dinner was a dream come true, well worth the wait and snowy travel, he said.

The Benners were among dozens of people who braved Wednesday's blizzard for a chance to eat Volt's "snow fixe" meal — a play on "prix fixe," which offered a three-course dinner for $35 per person — at the North Market Street establishment.

Skip and Nikki Irwin, who live on Bentz Street, called their friend, Linda Wehe, who lives on Third Street, when they realized they could get "a great meal for a reasonable price" instead of cooking at home Wednesday.

Skip Irwin is on Volt's e-mail distribution list, which is how he found out about Wednesday's special menu. "I hit reply, and said ‘sign us up for a table for three,'" he said with a smile.

Irwin said the dinner was a great marketing idea, and the perfect opportunity to enjoy good food "in a warm, congenial environment, with friends," as the snow fell and winds blew outside.

That's exactly what Voltaggio was trying to accomplish when he decided to host the special dinner Wednesday night, he said from the cozy confines of his kitchen.

He created the menu, featuring "a meat-and-potatoes dish" — Pineland Farms beef strip loin with Yukon gold potatoes, roasted red pepper, chive and red onion, Tokyo turnips, and a "hearty roasted mushroom soup," also known as shiitake veloute with pine nuts, chili oil and basil, to showcase his take on "comforting food," he said.

"It's more for the downtowners to get out and have a place to go," Voltaggio said. "There are a lot of people who live downtown, and a lot of them are out and about [despite the weather]. A lot of us have cabin fever."

Voltaggio spent last week in Los Angeles and had trouble getting back into the Washington, D.C., region following last weekend's storm.

The restaurant was closed Saturday and Sunday due to the weather, as well as on Monday and Tuesday, which is the restaurant's usual schedule. By Wednesday, despite the snowy conditions, the chef was "itching to get back in the kitchen."

So, he drove his four-wheel-drive vehicle from his Urbana townhouse , picked up five employees on the way, and evaluated what he had in his kitchen.

The restaurant got its regular food delivery Tuesday, but no trucks could make it Wednesday, and Voltaggio was worried a bit about Thursday and Friday. The irregular deliveries are forcing him to get "a little more creative" with the ingredients he does have on hand, he said.

But creativity with food is Voltaggio's strong suit, according to two guests, enjoying cocktails and dinner next to the restaurant's street-side window. Chris Kamsler and Jennifer Berry, who live on East Patrick Street, went out for a walk Wednesday to escape their home for a little while and ended up at Volt.

"We just came out to see what the streets were looking like, and we ended up here," said Berry, a vegan who appreciates the restaurant's attention to detail when accommodating her diet.

Kamsler, who works in Tysons Corner, Va., and Berry, who works in Leesburg, Va., spent the day working from home, and found out about Volt's snow fixe menu online through the restaurant's postings on Facebook. They took a chance, stopping by in person, and scored a table.

Voltaggio and his staff — some of whom drove in from Middletown or Union Bridge to work on Wednesday — were excited to see so many Frederick residents willing to brave a blizzard to enjoy the food and atmosphere at Volt.

"We're here, the ovens are on, we had to shovel the walk anyway, so we figured we might as well open up and have people come in," the chef said.