Winter Strategies to Give Your Restaurant a Boost

Restaurants can be a very seasonal business, depending on their nature. A casual restaurant known for having a big sunny balcony may need help drawing customers during the dark and colder months.

Restaurants could probably use a boost to their bottom line during any month, but even the non-seasonal ones often experience a lull in foot traffic when temperatures dip below zero. Here are some tips you can incorporate that will make your restaurant more economically viable this winter.

Employee Scheduling Software

Getting new tech like a scheduling app that creates better schedules 80% faster than it would otherwise take is a meaningful way to not only make this complex task less of a headache, but to reduce the restaurant’s labor costs. Off the bat, your restaurant can shave 1-3% off its labor costs by getting software that makes schedules in minutes, instead of hours.

No matter how complicated scheduling needs get as employees need a winter vacation, or a snow day prevents an employee from getting to work, employee scheduling software is designed specifically to solve every staffing problem a restaurant could have. The time and money saved will be a meaningful gain in the winter months.

Seasonal Beverages

Drinking warm beverages to fight off the winter blues is a charm of the season. Your restaurant can highlight the availability of drinks like warm cocoa or hot chocolate, as well as seasonal alcoholic drinks like an Irish coffee.

Being warm when it’s freezing outside is its own pleasure, so encourage passersby to stop on in and combat the winter with something nice and warm to drink.

Hearty Winter Meals

We all get a craving for certain food in the winter that is just too heavy to eat during the summer. Soups, stews, roasts, and fancier meals like cheese fondue are all perfect for the wintertime. They’re heavy and comforting, so it’s much easier to face those cold gusty winds when you’ve got warming food in your belly.

While we tend to think of summer as the time for fresh produce, but there are vegetables which are in season during the winter. Restaurants can make wonderful, hearty winter meals from them.

Host Sporting Events

There are professional sports running all through the winter time, and this can be a convenient draw to bring people into your restaurant. If you have a TV with either cable or a satellite connection, there is an NHL hockey or NBA basketball game on pretty much every night of the week.

If your restaurant is sufficiently informal, you could create a daily special named after a local sport’s team to entice sports fans to celebrate under your roof. Once they’re inside maybe they’ll order a warm drink too, and your winter adjustments will start paying off exponentially.

The winter is freezing outside, but it doesn’t have to be a cold month for your restaurant. Just use smart tech to reduce your costs, offer seasonal food and beverages, and consider hosting a sporting event, and then your restaurant will be in great shape when the world begins to thaw.