Restaurant event planning can be an incredible opportunity to showcase your space, menu, and hospitality. A well-executed event can boost your restaurant’s reputation and revenue. However, without the right planning, even the most promising event can quickly become overwhelming. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the essential steps to streamline your restaurant event planning, helping you create memorable experiences for your guests.
Step 1: Define the Goals of the Event
It’s important to define what, specifically, you want out of your event. Understanding your specific goals will allow you to quickly and clearly define what needs to happen. But how do you properly define solid goals?
Aligning the Event with Your Restaurant's Brand and Audience
One of the most important parts of any event involving your restaurant, be it catering, karaoke, or a chef’s table, is that everything you do should align with your restaurant’s brand. It should be clearly related to what you do and, importantly, it should be easily relatable for your audience. Your guests know what they expect of your business, so you should regularly do your best to consistently deliver exactly that.
While that’s not to say that a surprise or two is out of order, you shouldn’t be planning a major overhaul of what you offer without good reason. If you’re going through a menu change or rebrand, then go all out, of course — but if it’s just a small event to bring in customers stick to what you know best.
Setting Clear Objectives
In restaurant event planning, there are a few common goals. Revenue, exposure and customer loyalty are popular goals for restaurant events.
Exposure ultimately means that you’re attempting to use your event as a form of marketing. This means that you’ll need to be on your A game when planning social media and recording images or videos for it. More importantly, it means that hiring a photographer or social media expert may be the move.
Similarly, customer loyalty will require a certain approach. We want customers to feel comfortable and enjoy their time. Because of this, it’s important to remember rule number one — we’re in hospitality. So be hospitable, keep your customer service on point, and show why you deserve customer loyalty.
Step 2: Create a Detailed Event Plan
With that out of the way, it’s time to get a plan going. Restaurant event planning revolves around the details, so it’s important to take your time during this process. While you can always run emergency cleanup in the moment, it’s far better to have a clear-cut plan to quickly accomplish what you’ve established as your goal.
Choosing the Right Date and Time
Time and place play a massive part in any event. First and foremost, the day that you set your event should be considered rather heavily. Try to avoid competing with local happenings like concerts or sporting events, as your guests may be more likely to attend those.
Secondly, understand when your target audience will be willing to show up for an event. If you generally run a breakfast joint, don’t expect regulars to show up for a late night dinner. Similarly, if you generally run a dinner service restaurant, don’t try to plan an event in the middle of the work week during the daytime. The last thing we want is our guests to have to debate on whether to show up to your event or to something else, be it work, school, or other events in the area.
Allocating Your Budget for the Event
One of the most important parts of restaurant event planning is your budget. It’ll make or break your plans quite quickly, and as such, your budget will require your attention during the planning phase.
While we can’t suggest what to do with your budget, as only you know what you need and can swing, we can suggest a few ways to make it work for you. Begin with your material costs — food, materials like plates and napkins, any additional equipment like speakers or microphones. From there, we can move to labor and establish a budget that lets you run the event properly.
With labor and material costs out of the way, the last things you should be budgeting for are marketing and decoration. You’ll want to build a crowd for just about any event, so take the time to invest in marketing your event. From there, you can spend anything that’s left on decoration and ambiance.
Establishing a Timeline and Checklist
Restaurant event planning requires a clear awareness of timing. Because of this, most restaurateurs find that establishing a timeline and checklist of what needs to happen and when tends to be incredibly important. It allows you and your staff a concrete, physical representation of what needs to happen and, if done properly, provides timing for each step.
We want to be ready for just about everything here, so take your time when planning. Think about contingencies, potential hiccups, and the general timing of when each course should begin.
Step 3: Design the Event Menu and Offerings
Customizing the Menu for the Event Theme
When building a menu for your event, it’s important to understand the theme that you’re aiming to achieve. Whether it’s a chef’s table menu, an all you can eat bonanza, or something in between, you’ll need to know in order to build the menu. Some events will do better with coursed plates, while others will shine with a more relaxed approach, and others still can be built around the flow that you already have going in your kitchen.
Incorporating Special Drinks or Pairings
Drinks are a major part of just about every event. Whether you’re a bar, winery, brewery, or a more traditional restaurant, you’ll want to think about special cocktails and (if possible and realistic) pairings for your menu. Consider what wines you want to sell and build a menu that allows you to pair them off and get them sold!
Similarly, cocktails should play into the theme of your event. If, for example, you’re doing a Gatsbian night out, build out a sazerac and other prohibition-era cocktails to fit the theme. Going for a taco night? Tequila will be your friend. The theme should help build your menu, not the other way around.
Step 4: Plan the Event Layout and Ambience
Organizing Seating Arrangements and Flow
The way that your seating is laid out will directly impact how your event can flow. Not only will it inform how many you can sit, but it’ll affect how your staff functions. Because of this, it’s generally best practice to run a test night. This is because restaurant event planning all boils down to preparedness. By having your servers test out the seating to ensure they can easily navigate the floor, you’ll cut out one more potential hiccup.
Setting the Mood with Lighting, Music, and Décor
Setting the right mood with lighting, music, and décor is essential to creating a memorable event atmosphere. Soft, warm lighting, such as candles or string lights, can create an intimate setting, while brighter or colored lighting adds energy to livelier events. Music should complement the event’s theme—whether it’s soft background jazz for a dinner or upbeat tunes for a celebration, keeping the volume at a level that allows for conversation. Enhance the décor with thoughtful touches like themed centerpieces, fresh flowers, or seasonal accents that reflect the occasion, ensuring every element contributes to a cohesive and inviting ambiance.
Step 5: Marketing the Event for Maximum Attendance
Marketing Channels to Spread the Word
To ensure your event reaches its full potential, promoting it effectively is crucial. Utilize a mix of marketing channels to spread the word and drive attendance. Start with social media by creating event posts and stories that highlight key details like date, time, and special features—such as live music or exclusive menus. You could boost these posts with targeted ads to reach a broader audience, especially local patrons.
Email marketing is another powerful tool; send invites to your existing customer base with enticing subject lines and a call-to-action for reservations. Leverage your restaurant’s website by creating a dedicated event page and featuring it prominently on the homepage.
Don’t overlook in-restaurant marketing; use table tents, posters, or mention the event during customer interactions to engage your current guests.
Partnering with Local Influencers or Businesses
One great way to get local eyes on your event is to partner with local influencers and businesses. Whether it comes in the form of a sponsored post or appearance from a local celebrity, a restaurant partnership, or just a simple shout out on the local news, do your best to get local eyes on your event naturally.
Step 6: Train Your Staff for a Seamless Experience
Assigning Event-Specific Roles and Responsibilities
Your team should each have specific, clear instructions for the event. Be sure to set clear objectives for each staff member so things can go as smoothly as possible. This ties back into the planning stage with a checklist — ideally, each team member should have their own checklist supplied during your pre-event brief.
Conducting a Pre-Event Briefing with Your Team
A quick brief to explain what’s happening, how many to expect, and discuss your expectations of your team is vital to a smooth night. Keep it short and sweet, be clear about your needs and wants, and keep communication open with your team.
Post-Event Evaluation and Follow-Up
Reviewing Event Success
Every event that you run, you should take the time to look at the numbers and reflect on how things went. Maybe it was a smash hit, maybe not, but look at what you can take away from it either way. If things went poorly, consider what you and your team could have done differently to fix (or at least help) the issue. If they went well, talk to your team about what they did to pull off each task and, importantly, thank them.
No matter how things played out, take the time to look at the numbers and review how it went — you’d be surprised what you can learn.
Reaching Out to Guests About the Event
Reaching out to guests that attended events is a great way to gather feedback and, potentially, rustle up more events down the line. Talk to guests about what they liked, what they might not have, and (if possible) start sewing seeds with them about future events.
Planning Your Next Event Based on Feedback
On that note, you should be planning future events before your current one ends. By doing this, you’re able to make adjustments with what you’ve learned from past events and, importantly, gain traction with your community for upcoming events. Once you’ve gathered feedback from your guests, you’ll be able to set a more concrete list of things to do, to avoid, and to try for your next event.
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