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29. November 2022, 3 min read

Restaurant guests are craving Christmas and New Year’s events

Author: Birgitte Brøndum
A woman at a New Year's event. There's confetti and balloons around her.
A woman at a New Year's event. There's confetti and balloons around her.
Photo: Cottonbro Studio

The restaurant guests of the future want memorable dining experiences. Restaurant events are among the latest and most popular industry trends. In December, Christmas and New Year’s events are especially popular. That’s good news for your restaurant because selling tickets for events can boost revenue while making things easier for you and your team!

Restaurants can benefit from hosting events all year round. These events can be as small as a set menu with a theme and as grand as a 12-course dinner with a costume party and live music. What matters is that the guests feel they take away a special experience on top of a good lunch or dinner. In December, Christmas and New Year’s events can boost your profit and help your restaurant stand out in a crowd. And as a welcome bonus, events with prepaid tickets and set menus make it easy to plan the entire workflow.

Here are 5 good reasons to host Christmas and New Year’s events at your restaurant!

1: New guests will discover your restaurant

Do you have a lot of loyal regulars that return to your restaurant again and again? Maybe they even bring their friends and family? Great! That’s how it should be. But you also need to reach new guests that don’t even know what they’re missing out on because they’ve never tasted your food. That’s where events come in. By hosting events for Christmas and New Year’s, you can attract new guests and make them come back many times next year!

Use your events to show new guests what’s unique about your restaurant, and flex all your best qualities. Need inspiration for your events? Here are the events other restaurants are currently offering via DinnerBooking’s website.

A waiter serving two New Year's dishes to restaurant guests.
Photo: DinnerBooking

2: Events can help you reduce food waste

When you sell tickets for dining events with set menus it’s much easier to avoid food waste. The number of sold tickets will show you how many guests to expect. And because guests pick their menu in advance, you only need to buy exactly what you need for your set menus. This is a good way to avoid wasting food, which is great news for both your budget and the climate!

A set menu for your Christmas event can include either traditional Christmas dishes, an afternoon tea spread or something entirely unique and creative. Some restaurants also offer a dinner menu on Christmas Eve. You can read more about Christmas events and menus here.

Restaurants that have a set menu for New Year’s Eve often add a time schedule to the menu, so the guests know what to look forward to at different parts of the evening. A few examples are the New Year’s menus at Basso in Aarhus, Denmark and Mühely in Budapest, Hungary.

3: It’s easier to plan your staff schedule

Hosting events in December can help also help you and your team reduce holiday stress. With a specific number of sold tickets and a menu that’s tailored for the event, estimating needed staff and sticking to a schedule becomes easier. Moreover, if you host similar events multiple times, chefs, waiters and other staff members will soon know the drill. Naturally, you will still have December’s walk-ins, but the events can help you get more guests while simplifying the workflow on certain days.

4: Christmas and New Year’s events are fantastic for marketing material

When you host an event, whether it’s a Christmas event, a New Year’s event or something entirely different, take pictures! Pictures of your food, Christmas decorations and snaps that capture the mood of your event. Is your staff decorating the tree, shopping for confetti or blowing up silver balloons for the New Year’s party? Take a picture of them and use it as a teaser for the event. Pictures from this year’s events are perfect marketing material for next year’s Christmas and New Year’s events.

Use your events as opportunities to share posts on your restaurant’s social media channels. Start in good time before the event and continue with appetising teasers up until the day of your event!

A smiling man lying on the floor covered in golden confetti
Photo: Cottonbro Studio

5: You can secure your revenue with prepayment

Another big advantage of hosting Christmas and New Year’s events is that you can sell prepaid tickets. Prepayment is ideal when you want to reduce no-shows. Restaurant guests are much less likely to forget to show up when they’ve already paid.

The theme of the event and the set menu, makes it seem natural for the guest to buy a prepaid ticket. They’ll feel they’re paying for an experience. Just like when they’re buying a concert or theatre ticket. Once your guests have been introduced to prepayment via your events, you will also be able to use it on other occasions to secure your revenue and protect yourself from having to waste time and money.

These are just some of the ways your restaurant can befit from hosting Christmas and New Year’s events. And it’s not just in December. Each month of the year offers opportunities to impress regulars and new guests with irresistible dining events – Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter, your chef’s birthday, strawberry season, international pancake day, Halloween, and a myriad of others. Be as creative as you want, and when you’re ready, you can set up your events right here!