How your restaurant can thrive during the holidays

During the holidays, customers are in the mood to eat more, drink more, and spend more. It is essential for restaurants to take advantage of this peak time to create methods and initiatives to thrive. Check out some tips to keep your customers merry and your income statement merrier!

Upsell specials.

Tempt your customers with special items and add-ons to squeeze more profit from each cover. White truffle shavings? Sure! A dollop of caviar? Why not?! Some creamy uni? Yes! Get creative and spice up your drink list with holiday flavors that are pricier than normal like, bourbon mulled wine, hot buttered rum punch, maple bourbon eggnog, and more. Make sure your POS can modify menu items in real-time so that you can change any items on the fly if specials were to change last minute. In addition, make sure to set up your menu so that each special accounts for the variations in cost to accurately keep track of inventory.

Plan your schedule ahead.

An understaffed restaurant during the holidays will be an utter disaster so make sure to create a schedule ahead of time. Let your employees know further in advance than usual so that they can plan their holiday time without missing a shift. Also, analyze last year’s data to decide the amount of staff you will need in the kitchen, on the floor, at the host stand, etc and plan accordingly for this year instead of arbitrarily guessing how many people you will need. If needed, consider hiring seasonal staff like college students who are out for the holiday. This will ensure that you are fully equipped for the chaos.

CRM.

With your customer relationship management system, you can identify repeat guests and in the spirit of the holiday, present them with complimentary drinks or appetizers. These small details can really enhance your customer’s season spirit. By going the extra mile, it will inspire them to share their experiences and promote your venue long after the holidays. By understanding your cost of goods sold from your inventory system, you can identify which low food cost items would be ideal for comps.

Keep employee morale up.

They are most likely dying to get home so it is essential to keep their morale up and provide them with rewards for working so hard during the holidays. Creating some fun initiatives such as employee stockings and secret Santa is one way to make work fun. By creating an environment that makes your restaurant feel like a family will make them miss home less. In addition, reward your hardworking staff with bonuses or other gifts to show them your appreciation. January is the most common time for turnover so keeping your employees happy is very important for your business!

Give back to the community

More and more people are driving their purchasing decisions by the values businesses hold. Consider holding a charity drive that can get customers and employees excited about the holiday spirit. This will show your standards and what type of establishment you run. Not only will this entice return customers to keep coming back but also attract new customers. It will also showcase the essence of holiday spirit: kindness, generosity, giving and sharing.