POPMENU INDUSTRY REPORT
Season's Eatings.
Prepare your restaurant for the holiday season with our expert guide. Uncover strategies, technology, and inspiration to maximize revenue and guest satisfaction.
Welcome
Welcome to your handbook for the holidays.
As the leaves turn brilliant shades of orange and gold, and a slight chill enters the air, you know it's that special time of year again. Diners are eagerly seeking October frights, November bites, and December delights… and your restaurant can be their go-to destination for it all.
This holiday season isn't just about spreading joy — it's a golden opportunity for your restaurant to earn more revenue. Guests are excited to embrace the festivities, and they're on the lookout for memorable experiences and enticing discounts to make celebrations even more special.
In this guide, we offer a season-spanning feast of tips, technology tools, and inspiring success stories that will equip your restaurant for the months ahead (and beyond). From growing your sales to helping staff manage the holiday rush, this guide has everything you need to be merry.
The Guest Wishlist
First things first: diners want holiday experiences.
While you may already offer some elements of the holiday wishlist below, the key to holiday success lies in how you position these offerings as unique “holiday experiences.” Framing an offer as an “exclusive Cyber Monday deal” or “a gift to our loyal customers” taps into the emotional connection guests have to the festive season.
What makes guests more likely to visit a restaurant during the holidays?
Special offers
Holiday events
Live entertainment
Holiday-themed meals
Game day events
Proven Playbook
No tricks — just treats!
While finding the best way to engage guests over the holidays can feel overwhelming, plenty of restaurants have already carved out success with events, special menu items, and game-day promotions. Take a look at our list of treats that have helped restaurants earn additional revenue while giving guests a memorable experience.
Pop Tip:Once you've identified the opportunities you want to capitalize on for the holiday season, create a promotional calendar to make it easier to schedule marketing communications and keep your staff organized.
HalloweenPrix Fixe Dinners
Exclusive dining events can help your restaurant earn some extra revenue — plus it creates an exciting opportunity for your kitchen staff to flex their creative culinary skills! Henderson & Kane hosts a four-course dinner that pays homage to Dia de los Muertos, with a menu featuring authentic flavors with a modern twist. Guests can purchase tickets through their online ordering.
HalloweenHoliday Events
Whether a grand party or an online ordering event, making your food the centerpiece of guests’ holiday celebrations is a great way to ensure your restaurant is part of their holiday traditions. Flora Mexican Kitchen hosts their annual Halloween party with a 5-course meal, open bar, and live music to ensure guests have a spooktacular time!
Thanksgiving & FallSporting Event Watch Parties
Making your restaurant the destination for guests to root for their favorite teams is a great way to earn repeat business. The best part? It can be as simple as making sure you have the right cable channels and turning on your TVs. Brixx & Barley takes their game-day celebrations a step further by hosting tailgate parties at Metlife Stadium and letting guests pre-order tickets through their online ordering.
Thanksgiving & FallLive Music and Entertainment
Special menus or menu items are a great way to attract diners seeking seasonal delights. It can be as simple as a clever rename of a fan favorite dish or as complex as crafting a menu with classic holiday offerings. Poogan's Porch features Thanksgiving classics like herb-roasted turkey, sage, sausage & cornbread dressing, and whipped potatoes to satisfy guests' holiday cravings.
Winter HolidaysOffers and Discounts
Providing a special discount to incentivize guests to sign up for your email list, or to earn a revisit from a loyal customer, is a win-win! Hummus & Pita Co. invites guests to place an online order with an enticing 15% discount on their first order, with a pop-up message about the offer on their homepage to maximize visibility.
Winter HolidaysGift Cards
Selling physical and digital gift cards provides diners a thoughtful and convenient way to share the joy of dining at your restaurant, and can be a reliable revenue boost during the festive season. For Small Business Saturday, Lucy’s Pizzeria encourages diners to stock up by offering a free $5 for every $25 spent on gift cards.
Marketing & Promotion
Marketing and promotion.
Much like assembling a delectable Thanksgiving feast, a successful holiday season requires a spread of carefully crafted offerings to entice your guests. It's not enough to simply host exciting events and promotions — you have to actually invite guests over! Fortunately, you have a cornucopia of online tools at your disposal to spread the word.
Get the most from your website.
- Use pop-up announcements as an eye-catching way to let guests know about your next big event.
- Feature high-margin items to draw guests’ attention and drive more orders.
- Showcase an events calendar to inform guests on your upcoming promotions & events.
- Provide seasonal menus to get guests in a festive ordering spirit.
- Invite guests to join your contact list to receive special offers, secret menus, and more.
Pop Tip:Boosting your restaurant's holiday success means attracting fresh faces to your website. Craft distinct pages for each menu item to expand your digital presence and help search engines like Google serve up your offerings to hungry customers.Shameless plug: Popmenu does this and more to improve your website's performance and bring in new customers.
35% OFF
ONLINE ORDERING
Get 35% off!
Code: VIP35Last year, Phat Eatery hosted a Thanksgiving online ordering event, featuring seasonal dishes like beef rendang wellington, honey-glazed turkey breast, and ginger sake cranberry sauce. These tasty offerings earned the restaurant $16.5k in online ordering revenue from one event, with guests spending an average of $210/order — a 190% increase in ticket size over Phat Eatery's average online order.
PHAT EATERY
Thanksgiving Feast
Order deadline: 11/20 Sunday 11:59pm
in online ordering revenue from one event
average order value
increase in ticket size over their average online order
Offers.
Diners are hungry for discounts and special offers this holiday season. While a discount initially means smaller order value, it can go a long way to entice new and repeat guests — plus, encouraging guests to sign up for your email list or join a loyalty program can improve retention and grow revenue long term. Just check out some stats from restaurants who are already using offers.
Emporium Thai
Provided guests a $6 discount
earned
Guests who redeemed an offer are 3x more likely to place multiple online orders.
Poppy’s Pizza and Grill
Provided guests a 15% discount
earned
Guests who redeemed an offer are 2.7x more likely to place multiple online orders.
Libby’s
Provided guests a 30% discount
earned
Guests who redeemed an offer are 1.4x more likely to place multiple online orders.
Email marketing.
Email marketing remains one of the top ways to connect with and market to your guests. In fact, 60% of consumers said they want to hear from their favorite restaurant at least once a week. A holiday calendar featuring promotional offers and exciting events will make stuffing your emails with valuable content easy.
Email marketing success with Henri's Bakery & Deli.
In the 2023 holiday season, Henri's leveraged email marketing to promote their festive pastries and baked goods for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. These emails earned the bakery $30,800 — nearly double what they earned in 2022.
Halloween Pre-Orders Now Available
Add some spooky treats from Henri's to your Halloween party!
Order Now
Thanksgiving Pre-Orders Now Available
No Thanksgiving dessert table is complete without treats from Henri's! Online Pre-ordering is now available on our website by clicking the button below. You can also contact one of our locations directly to place an order by phone.
Order Now
Christmas Pre-Orders Now Available
Add some holiday cheer to your dessert table with treats from Henri's!
Order Now
Pop Tip:Having a single tool to manage your website, marketing, and ordering (and more) is the secret ingredient to seeing real results from your holiday efforts.Another shameless plug: Popmenu has first-party online ordering, website management, and a robust marketing suite all included, so you can easily see how your digital tools work together to earn you online orders all season long.
Plan your content with Artificial Intelligence.
As the use of artificial intelligence continues to grow across industries, so do automation capabilities. AI can actually help you build and plan marketing content — saving time and helping to hit revenue goals without increasing manual effort.
Another way to “pumpkin spice” up your marketing efforts is through social media marketing. In fact, 73% of consumers said they are more likely to visit a restaurant if they see a promotion on social channels. Using social platforms to showcase decorations, seasonal dishes, and operational updates for the holidays can inspire guests to visit your restaurant — and makes it easy for them to invite their friends.
On-Premise, On Point
'Tis the season…
The holidays are the season of bustling tables and hungry diners. As guests cozy up in your restaurant to celebrate the joys of the season, it can be difficult to orchestrate the perfect dining experience while your restaurant is so busy. That's where on-premise solutions come to the rescue, helping restaurants conquer the chaos and make the season a time of merriment for customers and staff alike.
Holiday phones are ringing…
Hand-in-hand with the special menus and events you've planned for the season come questions from guests — and lots of them. Tech-savvy restaurants are leaning more on automated answering services to handle the influx of inquisitive guests, freeing staff to focus on in-person diners.
I had a hostess return this year with AI Answering in place, and after about a week she asked 'Is the business okay? I'm not answering the phone as much.' It's made a huge impact.
On-Touch Automation
Turn phone calls into marketing opportunities.
With custom greetings and responses, you can highlight upcoming events, special offers, and new dishes, and send links to revenue-driving actions like reservations, online ordering, and waitlisting.
A little automation goes a long way.
In 4 months with AI Answering, Local's Pizza & Grill automatically fielded 4,900 calls, saving their staff over 42 hours on the phone. With the help of the tool, Local's increased their monthly online ordering revenue by 162% from 2022 to 2023.
calls automatically fielded in 4 months
hours of staff phone time saved
increase in monthly online ordering revenue, 2022 to 2023
“Hello, thank you for calling The Black Cat Bar & Grill.Join us this weekend for a holiday party and enjoy spiked cocoa and honey-baked ham.How may I help you today?”
Real questions guests ask, answered automatically:
Guests' holiday wishlist.
Before Answering
After Answering
The Digital Waitlist
Put the pen and paper on your naughty (wait)list.
Give guests (and yourself) the gift of a better waitlisting experience. A good digital waitlist will capture guest data, encourage guest engagement and upsells, increase table turnover, and drive more reviews to the menu.
Our guests really enjoy the digital waitlist — it definitely helps keep them engaged while they're waiting for a table. Guests are texted a link to the menu while they wait so they can browse beforehand, and then they're texted again after they're seated, encouraging them to leave a review. We've seen a major increase in reviews from that.
You're on the waitlist! Browse the menu while you wait: popme.nu/waitlist-menu
You're seated — enjoy! Mind leaving a quick review? popme.nu/review-link
Winking Lizard Tavern has earned over 2,600 reviews across their website.
Final Thoughts
We've covered a lot in this guide.
Just remember these three points to help you run a memorable and profitable holiday season at your restaurant:
- Be intentional with your holiday planning to get the most out of guests during the season.
- Use marketing to collect guest contact data and maximize your potential earnings.
- Technology can automate and streamline on-premise operations to ensure a delightful experience for all.
And, if you ever need an extra hand, Popmenu's team of restaurant marketers is ready to help you build your strategy, create content, and execute across channels. Learn more about our Boost team.
Win bigger with Popmenu.
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