One of the best ways to encourage good turnout on a traditionally slow night are restaurant theme nights. When properly planned, they’re easy to pull off and can encourage new (and returning) customers to try new things, go out on a night they might normally stay in, and most importantly enjoy themselves.
Below, you’ll find a collection of restaurant theme night ideas, along with a few tips on how to pull them off effectively.
How to Integrate Themed Nights into Your Restaurant
When trying to integrate restaurant theme nights into your restaurant, it’s important to look at the numbers. Take a look at your slowest nights, and think — what can you do to bring in crowds, and ultimately, turn a profit?
Whether this means running steak sandwiches on the last day of the week that you can sell your steaks or ordering new produce for specials, it’s crucial to think about what you have on hand. This is especially important because theme nights should, ideally, be recurring. In other words, you shouldn’t be planning “one and done” theme nights regularly. While one-time special events can be great, recurring theme nights allow your guests to plan ahead for the future — which is important when trying to retain (or gain) regulars.
Benefits of Restaurant Themed Nights
Generally, restaurant theme nights come about to combat days of the week that are generally slower than ideal. Some spots choose to run theme nights most (or all) nights a week, leading to a consistent flow of regulars based on the day of the week. Either way, restaurant theme nights allow you to bring something new to the table and encourage people to return.
Some restaurants find success with “food themes” (detailed below), others with game nights or hosting watching events for sports, and others still carry out events like karaoke to great effect. Restaurant theme nights don’t have to be every day (or even every week), but can be an incredibly handy strategy when trying to bring in new guests.
It’s also worth noting that theme nights can affect your employees, too. Allowing weekly specials to be handled by kitchen staff can bring a bit of creativity into their weekly workflow and bring a bit more enthusiasm for their work — and letting bar staff build cool new drinks can do the same.
Top 10 Restaurant Theme Night Ideas
Whether you’re looking to spice up the menu with a cool new special or attract a new crowd, these restaurant theme night ideas are sure to do just what you need. These food themes will allow you a quick way to highlight something special and bring in the crowds that we all want.
Italian Night
Like many of the themes we’re about to explore, Italian night is a great example of restaurant theme nights done right. Often, restaurants that host Italian nights will highlight pasta, pizza, and other relatively cheap but delicious staples with a discount or feature special.
This allows them to use up flour or old dough, canned or dry produce like tomatoes and pasta (among other things) and sell them at a premium. And the best part? Guests love events like this for their affordability. Even something as simple as endless pasta and breadsticks can turn a slow Monday into a recurring hit. In other words, it truly can be as simple as spaghetti and meatballs.
Mexican Night
On the note of food-based restaurant theme nights, Mexican nights are a great option for joints that want a faster alternative to Italian night. Whether it’s Taco Tuesday or Tequila Thursday, Mexican nights are a great option to use pulled pork, flank steak, chicken, or fish in tandem with a few fresh bits of produce.
Be sure to stay in-scope for your joint, though. If you’re a pizza place, chances are that a taco night would be terrible; similarly, if you don’t have a huge bar, maybe don’t run margherita specials.
80s Retro Night
Eighties retro night is a great example of restaurant theme nights that highlight more than food. Whether you opt for a fashion or music-driven approach, theme nights that center around cultural events, rather than food alone, can be a great way to bring in guests that generally go out more for things to do than to eat.
You could even go so far as to hold a competition for the best outfit, playlist, or performance — should you go the karaoke route — and award a gift card or merch to the winner. This allows you to give guests bragging rights and, crucially, bring them back again. That’s the whole point of restaurant theme nights, after all, so remember to incentivize return visits!
Jazz & Blues Night
Jazz and blues nights are another excellent music-based choice for restaurant theme nights. These shine especially in moodier environments like bars, as it helps drive home the mood. While that’s not to say that a deli, pizza joint, or burger shop couldn’t also pull off a jazz night, it’s important to think about your regular customers. If your theme nights are so far off from your usual ambiance that it may be off putting, you run the risk of losing regulars.
Another great part about jazz or blues nights is that you have an excuse to bring in live talent. Live music is a great way to highlight cool people from your community while encouraging people to show up — plus you get to listen to great music!
French Bistro Night
Similar to jazz nights, French Bistro Nights are an instance of restaurant theme nights that require a certain ambiance to pull off. Loud sports bars and rowdy fast-casual joints may find it difficult to match the night’s energy, and we don’t want that. So if you have a quiet spot that sees less turnover with more extended stays, consider a French bistro night!
You can run higher-end specials (coq au vin, anyone?) with higher per-plate cost while still making a profit. While you may not be equipped to “elevate” your food like a full-blown French operation, you can take advantage of a good ambiance and talented chefs to bring out the best of your restaurant.
Hollywood Glam Night
Similar to 80s night, Hollywood glam night is an excuse for guests to get dressed up and go out. It’s highly recommended to accompany this event with live music and/or a competition; whether it’s for best dressed, craziest outfit, or something else, what matters is that you give guests a reason to go all-out.
This night isn’t so much about the food as it is the ambiance and drinks. Build a special cocktail menu (and trust me here, feature champagne) and sell, sell, sell! When paired with something fun to focus on, boozy drinks and fancy outfits are an excellent way to get your guests partying.
Seafood Extravaganza
Seafood nights are a type of restaurant theme nights that are generally intended to use ingredients that are nearing the end of their shelf life. That’s not to say by any means that they are bad, just that you won’t be able to sell it much longer.
For example, if you know that you have a dish that uses salmon (which you order on Mondays), try to run salmon specials on Saturday and Sunday. It can be a new take on old favorites, something entirely out of the ordinary for your spot, or something in between, but you’d be surprised how many people genuinely love regular seafood nights.
Farm-to-Table Night
If you have the relationships with suppliers to pull it off, farm-to-table nights are a great way to highlight local, fresh produce while making something awesome in the process. While it will certainly take a bit of work to make it happen, nights like this are also an excellent way to boost your crew’s morale.
By creating an easy excuse to go local, even if only for a night, you can increase your employee’s pride in the food they make and bring in new guests. This is an especially great idea in restaurants that generally have longer table times, as you’re able to focus on individual plates (or even courses), rather than a special or two.
Oktoberfest Celebration
For spots that tend to sell a lot of beer, Oktoberfest is the big one. While it certainly helps to be a beer hall, brewpub, or bar to pull it off, anyone with beer can pull off a great Oktoberfest. Bring in local favorite beers, pair them with specials — pretzels and beer cheese being a must — and get to it!
And while it’s not mandatory, it’s highly recommended to prepare beer flight recommendations, pairing notes, and talking points ahead of time. Having a well-coached front of house allows the beer to flow, and that is the whole idea here.
Wild West BBQ Night
Once again, we find an example of restaurant theme nights that are great when executed properly, but that may require a bit more effort or pre-existing equipment. Shops that already have access to a smoker will have a field day with wild west nights, as it shouldn’t require too much extra investment beyond meat and prep.
Whether you opt to go full-out with meat and sides or highlight a new BBQ special each week, wild west nights can be killer for drawing a crowd. And, as mentioned above, they give your staff something to look forward to each week. Allowing kitchen staff to rotate a BBQ special can be an easy win for morale that’s also tasty — and that’s a win you should take.
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