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How To Prepare For The Holiday Season As a Restaurant Owner?
Charu Sharma • October 29, 2022
'Tis the holiday season y'all! It is that time of the year- crispy breeze, misty evenings, family and great food.
What does it mean for you as a restaurant owner? Here we are, with a detailed list of things that you can do to keep those orders coming in.
Seasonal Menu
Holidays are the best time to roll out a seasonal menu.
Why should you do it?
Guests feel festive during this time, and want to try exotic dishes, seeing a seasonal menu automatically attracts them as they want to have something exotic and something that goes with the theme and atmosphere.
What should you think about before-hand?
- Do you have the ingredients with you? Are they easy to get hold of?
- Do your cooks/chefs know how to prepare the special dishes?
- Can the items on the menu be changed while maintaining quality for both large and small orders?
- In addition, think about how you'll package seasonal specials for pick-up and delivery. Consider your options carefully before providing these options for a dish if it can't be delivered to the customer in the same condition.
Take a look at a few examples below-
- During the holiday season, customers are quite fond of flavors like peppermint, eggnog, gingerbread, cranberry, turkey, pumpkin spice, and chestnut. Make sure to highlight a variety of meals using these items.
- Coffee shops can come up with Pumpkin spiced lattes, other options are comforting soups and stews, spiced beverages, and peppermint-flavored desserts.
- You can serve soups from huge cauldrons to create a spooky vibe in the store.
- You can try with drinks and pastries. Remember how Christmas is always about candy canes and hot chocolate? Ingredients such as caramel, marshmallow, berries, and many others can be used.
- Instead of coming up with entirely new dishes, you can just simply tweak existing dishes and coming up with interesting and eye-catching names of the items- like spooky burger, chopped fingers, etc.
- Similarly, play with Turkey, cranberry etc. for Thanksgiving.
Sales Forecasting
Sales forecasting is one of the most important steps to undertake while prepping for the holidays.
- You should be aware of what kind of traffic awaits you during these special days.
- Analyzing the historical data from the sales report from the previous year is one method for doing this.
- Calculate the table turnover and the number of customers you anticipate on a busy night.
Take A Look At Your Inventory
- Be ready for a higher foot-fall, ready by having what you need, inventory!
- The easiest method to plan ahead is to save kitchen notes and inventory analytics reports from past years while getting ready for the following year.
- In order to avoid having to apologize to your clients for running out of food to serve them, arm yourself with the greatest and freshest products and keep plenty of them on hand.
Do You Have Enough Staff During The Holidays?
- Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and other holidays imply that you should prepare for a significant rush at your restaurant. You might need to hire more personnel to handle the extra consumers because there will likely be more guests than on any of the normal days.
- If your restaurant's service slacks off because of your wait staff inefficiency during the rush, it can destroy the overall client experience and damage the reputation of your business. So, if you want to help you manage the Christmas rush in eateries, think about hiring seasonal workers.
- Will you have enough workers to handle extra business and big holiday parties? Plan ahead for your seasonal hiring today, before your rivals hire the most dependable candidates.
- Speak to your staff regarding what their aspirations are, what kind of shifts do they want? Do they need offs to go back home? Spread the cheer!
- Will you have enough workers to handle extra business and big holiday parties? Plan ahead for your seasonal hiring today, before your rivals hire the most dependable candidates. A successful customer experience is mostly dependent on having a sufficient personnel.
- Talk to your team members about your requirements and their expectations for the holiday season during one of your staff meetings.
- Others might want more time off, while some will probably want to work more shifts to make more money.
- Make sure to properly explain any changes to your holiday hours during the meeting so that everyone on staff, including management, is aware of when the restaurant will be closed and when hours will be extended.
- As soon as you've confirmed the availability of your staff, make sure the timetable is prepared and distributed to everyone.
- Even though unexpected absences are common over the holidays, be sure your expectations about shift changes and swapping are very clear.
- To prevent misunderstanding, establish a protocol and be explicit about the consequences of call-offs.
Decorations Make It Worth It!
- Creating a Holiday mood is a fantastic way to encourage consumers to make purchases.
- People want to enjoy the season, not merely eat meals with a festive theme.
- Customers may feel more festive if your dining area, foyer, and restaurant outside are all decked out in Holiday décor. Make sure any modifications you want to make, however, complement the style of your dining room and your overall brand before you start decking the halls.
- Some workers enjoy decorating, and they show it. Make it an after-hours activity and invite their kids and family to assist.
- Plan to ask a volunteer to lead the decorating committee for each key holiday season. Decide on a transition date as well; no one wants to see Halloween decorations right before Christmas.
- Beyond how they appear, keep in mind that decorations and other interior design components should never obstruct the dining experience or the productivity of your staff.
- Think about whether the tinsel you wish to hang could go into your customers' meals or whether a festive snowman statue might get in the way of the servers going to the kitchen, for instance. When choosing decorations, be thoughtful and functional.
Holiday Catering
- Catering enables restaurants to connect with customers who are attending social gatherings and holiday festivities at home or another location with friends and family.
- You might want to think about increasing your catering services if the Holiday season is slow for business at your restaurant.
- Why not invite customers to your restaurant? Catering can be employed for both casual backyard holiday gatherings and the formal family Christmas dinner as a fast service or fine dining institution.
- Along with these, make sure your marketing is effective by knowing your target audience. For instance, gatherings will be more focused on things like Christmas, Halloween, New year and game day parties if you live in a community with young professionals (when in season).
- Email, SMS with first-party data, and social media platforms for awareness and discovery where your target demographic is already active online should all be included in your marketing strategy.
- Never forget that running a catering company and a restaurant demand completely different business philosophies. Always prepare your team and inventory for it.
Gift Cards And Promos
- For holidays like Christmas, not every outlet will be open. Use social media, emails, or direct mail to inform clients in advance of your holiday hours and schedule.
- It's also a fantastic opportunity to provide a discount in appreciation for their loyalty.
- During the holiday gift-giving season, costs and budgets are on people's minds; your customers will value any loyalty discounts you provide.
- Everyone enjoys getting gifts that are free. Giving your customers a Christmas cake at the time of invoicing or providing complimentary wine with their meal is similar to giving them a Christmas gift.
- When you have a special deal, people purchase gift cards for both themselves and other people.
- They can then be invited to your loyalty program at that point. Try out these tactics and prepare your institution for the influx to make the holiday season your restaurant's most profitable period of the year!
Take A Cue Here-
- Halloween offer- 2 medium Pizza + Small Salad (house/ Caesar) + Small Cheese Bread @ $30
- Thanksgiving Combo - 2 large pizzas,1 Caesar salad & a cheese bread $32
- Christmas Offer- Kids Eat free on purchases of $30.
Community Relations
The holidays are an excellent time of year to demonstrate to the community that you care. That you wish to repay them by spreading happiness. Here are some tactics to consider implementing as part of your community relationship development efforts.
Coupon Partnerships
Collaborate with nearby schools, churches, and apartments, for example. You can give participating youngsters (on Halloween or Christmas events) vouchers for a free lunch or a free menu item, or you can provide move-in coupons to new members of the apartment complex. This encourages the entire family to go to the restaurant to utilize the coupon. When they are pleased with your services, they will recommend you to others, and they will quickly become your regulars!
To increase online ordering, it is always best to provide coupons connected to a minimum purchase like BOGO Deals. You can also issue coupons with codes that are exclusively valid for online orders.
Social Media
Use social media to your advantage over here! Give your supporters a reason to spread the word! Give them coupons in exchange for bringing in new likes or followers to your page. Provide customers free gift certificates for generating user-generated content for your page, such as tagging your company page and posting photos from your restaurant. It may appear as a lot, but trust us when we say that it would be quite beneficial to your restaurant.
Conducting contests is another way to generate a joyful atmosphere on your social media. For instance, mKonnekt held a Halloween photo contest for one of its clients. We requested that schools post images of their grade-specific Halloween decorations. After that, we instructed them to distribute the images and garner as many likes as they could. The contestant who received the most likes won, and our client's restaurant provided them with a pizza party.
This particular trial was successful in generating a significant quantity of traffic, and our metrics increased dramatically.
Toys For Tots
Toys for Tots is a 71-year national charitable program run by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. The mission of “Toys for Tots” is to provide happiness and hope to the disadvantaged kids with toys, books, gifts etc. The vision is to put a smile on the faces of the kids who are not able to have the simple joys in life.
Setting Up Angel Trees
Angel tree programs are a great way of helping out the less fortunate and giving back to the community. Angel trees are more or less like the Christmas trees, the main difference being that the tree is decorated with gift requests and tags by the sponsored families. Not only would this program spread holiday cheer and bring smiles on the faces of the needy, but also make people remember your name as a brand who cares!
Wrap-Up
Good luck! We hope you’ll use these tips to market your restaurant in an effective way during this holiday season. If you have some more tips to add, feel free to join our restaurant marketing group-
Restaurant Marketers Hub and have a discussion there!
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Have you heard about these 10 awesome steps that can totally crush it for your restaurant marketing plan?
It's true, by following these steps you can easily dominate the competition and attract more customers to your eatery.
So why not give it a shot and see the results for yourself?
And every restaurant, regardless of size, can benefit from a given restaurant marketing plan.
Let's break this down step-by-step to make sure we don't miss a beat. We definitely don't want to risk losing out on the chance to win big with our restaurant marketing plan!
So, let's take it one step at a time and make sure we cover all our bases.
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The year 2022 has been nothing less than a rollercoaster ride! We've been through a lo of things, experimented, struggled and got through them all. Is safe to say that we at least tried to go through all of these, whether it was inflation, supply chain challenges, or labor shortages , and guess what was constant in all of them that helped us get through? Guess what was common in all that helped us get through? It's tech! Technology has always been by our side for us to improve and get through the difficult times that we faced. And let's face it, all these issues are not going away anytime soon, hence it is important, not only for the restauranteurs, but people in every industry to be familiar with the tech trends before planning out their strategies for the next year. Here, we have talked about the top 5 tech trends to watch out for in 2023. #1 Online Ordering- Not only because of the pandemic, which forced numerous restaurants to discontinue dine-in service, but also because of the convenience of online ordering, it is expected that online ordering and delivery will grow even more. People nowadays want their favorite foods delivered right to their door. To begin, a decent website and app provide a firm foundation to build. Allowing customers to pay for online purchases directly on your website would simplify the process even more. Customers will love the convenience of ordering and paying for food from their computer or mobile device. According to a report by Statista , the revenue of online food delivery is estimated to expand at a 13.68% annual rate (CAGR 2022-2027), resulting in a market volume of US$1.45 trillion by 2027. Restauranteurs should focus on taking help from in-house online ordering platforms, such as Foodkonnekt, which minimize the high margins charged by the third party delivery platforms and also enhance the customer experience. #2 Ghost/Virtual Kitchens- According to current data, meal delivery orders increased by more than 150 percent from 2019 to 2020, and UBS predicts the food delivery company to rise more than tenfold in ten years, from $35 billion to $365 billion. More restaurant operators and food entrepreneurs are turning to cloud kitchens as a feasible business solution as the demand for meal delivery develops. Restaurants rent space in virtual or "ghost kitchens," which are centrally located, licensed commercial food production facilities, to create menu items that are best for delivery. They are essentially kitchens without a dining area; food is only prepared for delivery. Under one roof, a single restaurant may manage multiple brands or virtual eateries, or the kitchen may serve as an incubator for other suppliers. As the demand for meal delivery grows every day, many restaurateurs have turned it into full-fledged businesses, and this trend appears to be continuing into the next year. The market for ghost kitchens is anticipated to reach $1.05 billion in value by 2023. #3- Loyalty programs- The next trend that we'd like to discuss is the technology that goes into establishing and implementing loyalty programs. We are all aware that the oncoming recession will make life more difficult in the following year. Consumers are spending less and less on products they don't necessarily use in their daily lives as costs rise. As a result, as a restaurant owner, you must choose how to optimize revenues despite the possibility of a recession. And here is when a loyalty program comes into play. In monetary terms, it is a well-known fact, and all marketers emphasize it, that new clients are more difficult to target than regulars. The cost of acquiring new consumers is significantly more than the cost of retaining existing customers. As a result, now is the ideal time to target your loyal customers. And that can be easily done with a proper loyalty program in place. Freekwent is a digital loyalty program that we at mKonnekt operate for our clients across several locations. It is an excellent approach to treat your regulars to fresh deals and discounts that you may choose to run. In these difficult times, it will help you retain those extra dollars. #4- Automated Inventory Software Management System- The marketplace is getting more competitive. Those who identify present demands and react accordingly will thrive in the long run. The world is becoming more frantic and digitally dependent. Customers want better efficiency, prompt service, and high-quality products. An automated inventory system is a modern solution to the myriad challenges associated with human inventory systems. Because inventory systems are automated, they are more efficient and straightforward to administer, allowing management to manage activities more effectively and at a faster pace. It helps restaurants manage their ingredient purchase orders, stock levels, menu, and recipes expenses. The best inventory management software systems for restaurants integrate with or are built into point-of-sale (POS) systems, minimizing administrative time. These services cost between $99 and $129 per month. Some tools, on the other hand, are free and have limited functionality. Furthermore, to enhance restaurant operations, says Dirk Izzo, President and General Manager of NCR Hospitality, they are using data for more accurate forecasts. #5- Restaurant Marketing Automation and Smart Tech- Customers and restaurant businesses are embracing AI, from robots that flip hamburgers and make salads to those that handle order taking. McDonald's acquired AI company Dynamic Yield in 2019 with the goal of enhancing the customer experience at drive-thrus with the help of the business' automated personalization offering. The menu choices are shown according to the time of day, the weather, the volume of customers dining now, and what's trending on the website. Additionally, it makes meal suggestions based on the decisions each customer makes. The need for third-party delivery services increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced individuals to remain at home. 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For example, in order to conduct a successful email campaign, order data can be segmented so that targeted messages can be sent to consumers who haven't ordered in a specified length of time, say three months, and another section can be developed for people who are regulars. We have a team of incredibly smart marketers here at mKonnekt ; contact us if you want to see the mKonnekt magic! Wrap up- Those who are in tune with changing conditions are the clear winners in any industry. Here, we addressed the biggest restaurant innovations that will come to power in the following year, so get ready!
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