Guide
Everything you need to know to succeed, from Valentine’s Day to Christmas
Everyone loves events, holidays and celebrations, but for restaurants they can be a major source of revenue if you know how to maximise the opportunity they bring.
The first step is understanding that holidays and special occasions aren’t restricted to New Year, Easter, Christmas – they happen all year long. If you want your planning and marketing to pay off in a big way, the best time to start is now.
Whether the next event coming down the pike is universally recognised (Mother’s Day) or virtually unknown (Cheese Fondue Day), every one brings the same opportunity to launch creative promotions, increase revenue and get people’s attention. Regardless of the time of year, don’t miss the opportunity to grow your business.
When it comes to overall planning and timing, major occasions and minor ones are a lot more alike than they are different. This guide is packed with dozens of practical tips and suggestions you can put into action for every special event throughout the year. The advice is good for major holidays and minor occasions alike.
In addition, the guide walks you through a detailed playbook for every major celebration throughout the year, from Valentine’s Day to New Year’s Eve, with helpful insights to shape your strategy for each one.
Let’s get started on your 12-month journey to making the most out of the opportunities all the different events, holidays and celebrations bring.
In this guide, get tons of tips for making the most of every occasion, including:
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Offer waitlist in-house or online, and easily manage the door with wait quote suggestions and table-ready texting.
Maximize seatings and streamline service with smart table assignments and server section management.
24/7 bookability for guests through your digital properties, OpenTable, and our 600+ affiliate partners.
Custom tailored for your restaurant, robust inventory settings help you maximize your books and control the flow of your dining room.
Snag last-minute bookings and avoid double or overbooking with reservation inventory that is always up-to-date and available.
Individual, customizable tool for restaurants to manage their presence on OpenTable, enabling diners to book and learn vital information (location, menu, photos) about your restaurant.
Individual guest profiles with tagged diner preferences and notes.
Gain visibility for your restaurant with digital advertising in front of our diner network of millions.
Aggregate, manage and analyze your reviews in one place across the most popular review sites and custom post-dining surveys.
Make custom surveys available to your guests and get direct feedback about their experience to take action on with your team.
Offer, manage, and sell a full range of customized dining experiences, like tastings, classes, and special menus, all in one place.
Accept online orders and pay at the table as well as for takeout and delivery.
Connect your POS with OpenTable so you can keep track of revenue, get order insights, and enable auto-table statusing to speed up turn times and seat more guests.
Trigger automated emails based on guest visit preferences and measure your ROI with campaign performance tracking.
Identify and recognize guests according to their behavior and preferences, from average spend to most ordered items.
Automatically generate robust, individual guest profiles to better understand preferences and meet their needs.
Get an objective, holistic view of each server’s overall performance in terms feedback, cover, and check averages.
A network cover is a cover in a reservation booked through the OpenTable website or app. Each seated guest in a party is a cover, so a party of four is four covers. With OpenTable, you get access to a network of millions and only pay for seated diners, never for no-shows or cancellations.
Aggregate, manage and analyze your reviews across the most popular review sites in one place and create custom post-dining surveys.
Get in touch and stay in touch with guests about their visit from one central place the whole team can consult.