How to prepare your restaurant for the holiday season

The holiday season is near, which means restaurants will be packed! Knowing the tips and tricks on how to prepare your restaurant for the holiday season is an advantage.

Family and friends gather in their favorite restaurants to enjoy the jolliest time of the year. Almost every restaurant will be busy in preparation for the influx of customers, but a QR code menu can ease the challenges of a busy holiday season.

A QR code menu can improve automation across your business operations, including the kitchen, dining hall, inventory and supplies, staffing, and more.

With efficient technology, restaurants can brave through the holiday relatively easily and see their sales performance grow exponentially.

Generate a menu QR code for your restaurant now! Here's how to prepare your restaurant for the holiday season.

Tips and tricks to prepare your restaurant for the holidays

Streamline staffing and work appointments

How to prepare for the busy holiday season?

Efficient staffing is key to successful restaurant operations during the holiday.

With just how many people come in to dine or order takeaway, it can get overwhelming very quickly if the delegation of work isn't streamlined.

While hiring more people to work in the restaurant is an obvious choice, it also means higher labor costs for a holiday, which may not even break your revenue. Since they're new, managers also have to train them and may have difficulty adjusting to the job.

Instead of hiring more people who still have to undergo training, increase automation with a QR code menu. It addresses the most daunting tasks of servers:

Addressing customer concerns

With MENU TIGER’s digital menu software, your restaurant can run efficient and effective services that address customer concerns.

One of the advantages of a QR code menu is that it allows for contactless transactions.

This helps address customer concerns about hygiene and safety, especially during post-pandemic or other times when there is a need to minimize contact between people.

Customers can simply scan the QR code to access the menu and place their order, reducing the need for physical interaction with staff or menus.

Collecting orders from different tables

Significantly, MENU TIGER can help you with your holiday preparations by increasing the efficiency of your restaurant services.

Customers can place their orders directly from their smartphones, eliminating the need for waitstaff to take orders and transmit them to the kitchen.

With the interactive menu and QR code ordering feature of MENU TIGER, customer orders are easily transmitted to the dashboard. This is where kitchen staff and servers can track the progress of the customers' orders.

Processing payments of bills through digital QR code menu

Aside from the contactless ordering system using a QR code menu, customers can also pay through the interactive menu once they placed their orders. This allows customers to pay for their orders using their smartphone devices without the need for cash or a physical credit card.

MENU TIGER allows your restaurant to offer cashless payment transactions using PayPal and Stripe.

These payment methods enable customers to process their transactions digitally for a more convenient customer experience.

Gathering customer feedback

Depending on the monthly subscription plan, restaurants can get even more features and allow better automation in these everyday tasks.

One of MENU TIGER's features includes gathering customer feedback and insight.

By collecting the customer feedback, the restaurant can identify the pros and cons of their business. Hence, they can know what strategies are better for the restaurant and what those areas need improvements.

Customer feedback and insight allow you to help your business meet the needs and expectations of your customers. This will also let you enhance customer loyalty and increase sales and profitability of your restaurant.

Prepare your restaurant for the holiday season with a creative marketing campaign

Holidays result in more sales, but only sometimes. Restaurateurs have to get creative, too, to ensure customers order at their restaurant. Otherwise, it will just be one of those days.

To fully take advantage of the holiday rush, get creative! There are plenty of restaurants where people can dine in, but encourage and convince customers to eat at yours. The great thing is that December has a lot of events, which restaurants can take advantage of to create campaigns.

One example is the Christmas tradition in Japan when they launched the Kentucky for Christmas marketing campaign.

With a mix of QR code menus and in-store marketing, restaurants can significantly benefit from effective marketing strategies and methods.

How to prepare for the holiday season: December restaurant promotion ideas

Countries that celebrate Christmas

For countries that celebrate Christmas, the holiday is one of the most important celebrations of the year. If your restaurant or you have a branch located in a country that celebrates this profit-generating holiday, you can offer small Christmas dinner menu ideas to customers.

Also, you're lucky as the holiday has a rich culture that you can use in your campaigns, such as:

• Editing the layout of your digital menu to reflect the season
• Decorating your restaurant with white Christmas, red and green theme, and other elements related to the holiday
• Run a Christmas discount when dining with friends and family
• Apply the theme across all your platforms, including social media pages and website

Countries that don't celebrate Christmas

If your restaurant is located in a country that doesn't celebrate Christmas, December still has a celebration in store for you. Whatever culture or religion the country celebrates, year-end celebrations are almost universal! The idea is to thank the blessings in the past year and be hopeful for another one.

With this idea, carve out your marketing campaign. Different cultures celebrate the New Year, but commonly, restaurants can use the following in their campaigns:

• Launch happy hours, gift card promotions, discounts, and distribute New Year flyers along with vouchers.
• Partner with local charities to show appreciation for the past year's blessings, which can act as a corporate social responsibility.
• Host a holiday contest or online promotion where customers can share their blessings and what they've been thankful for the past year.
• Give an extra gift like food hampers or voucher if customers reach a certain amount on their purchase.

When launching a promotion campaign during the holiday season, get inspiration, but customize it according to your restaurant.

This way, you also boost your individuality as a brand, making it much easier for customers to recognize and recommend you to their friends and families.

Run a routine inventory and supplies check

Efficient staffing and effective marketing are just one of the many aspects that a QR code can address. The technology also works well in checking the supplies and inventory to ensure restaurants have ample ingredients at a crucial time.

The great thing is that a QR code can be placed on each supply to show comprehensive information about each ingredient, such as check-in date, best-before date, best storage practices, and more. This way, restaurants also have less food spoilage and wastage, which is a big tendency during the holiday season.

A QR code for inventory management is connected to the database, where restaurants can track the information about ingredients in real-time.

For any inaccuracies or supply issues, restaurants can address the concerns immediately and resolve them to avoid affecting restaurant operations.

Match the vibe with a Spotify playlist during the holiday season

While keeping all restaurant operations organized, the holiday is also about vibes.

Luckily, there are plenty of holiday playlists on different music streaming platforms, such as Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and more!

Try the specially curated MENU TIGER playlist, available on Spotify. The playlist is created with restaurant and dining experiences in mind, so customers can enjoy their meals while jamming to their favorite holiday tunes.

With the decorations in the QR code menu and the restaurant, customers can have an overall holiday dining experience.

Integrate better automation with a QR code menu for the holiday

A digital menu is a vital ingredient to prepare your restaurant for the holiday season. With complex and advanced features, restaurants can integrate better staffing, marketing, and inventory management automation.

If you're looking to generate a QR code menu, use only advanced menu QR code generators with customization features, data tracking, sales & analytics, payment integrations, and more. These platforms offer different monthly subscription plans to offer different types of restaurants the features that best match their needs.

Learn more about the QR code menu by visiting MENU TIGER.