How to host successful events in your restaurant

The benefits of hosting events in your restaurant

Getting started with hosting events in your restaurant can be a big leap in terms of organisation, planning and promotion and you need to be confident that you’ll get a worthwhile turnout.

There are plenty of benefits for restaurant operators to hosting events in their venue, including:

Diversifying your revenue stream

Event hosting provides a new revenue stream beyond serving traditional dine-in customers, depending on the event you can tailor the food and drink offer to maximise profitability. For ticketed events you can generate sales before the event even happens with more opportunity to sell to your guests at the event itself. Events can also be a great way to utilise your venue more profitability at quiet times – especially if you can cater to the right audience.

Appeal to a wider audience

One of the great things about hosting events is that you can widen your audience demographic and appeal to customers that you might not ordinarily. You’ll may want to take some time to think of some restaurant entertainment ideas that make work well in your venue. That might mean keeping your venue open later to run an evening event or hosting an activity event midweek targeted at retired people. This can help you generate business at less busy times.

Win business over your competitors

Events can help you attract more customers and give you a competitive edge over other local businesses. Your events might help you attract new customers who then are more likely to choose you venue to eat or drink at other times. A regular event such as a trivia or music night can help you become known locally and increase word of mouth custom. If your venue offers entertainment as well as food – this could be a selling point for guests looking for an experience.

Key considerations when hosting an event

Although hosting an event is a very exciting idea, it’s important to think about all the necessary considerations before taking the plunge. Here are a few ideas you may wish to consider when thinking about hosting an event of your own.

Staffing

If you’re planning to host an event that will see a larger intake of guests compared to your regular operating hours, then you may need to increase your staff, so your restaurant doesn’t become overloaded.

It could really impact customer experience if you’re understaffed for a large event and therefore needs to be taken into consideration. Ensure you have enough staff on the rota when organising special events.

Alternatively, if you’re a smaller venue looking to host a larger event, then you could always employ agency staff to help with relieve the pressure. That way, your staff won’t become overloaded, and your customer’s experience will be positive.

Ordering food for an event – will you require a pre-order?

If you’re looking at hosting a more intimate affair, such as a wine tasting evening or intimate dining experience, then ensuring you’ve got enough food for the occasion may not be a worry.

However, if you’re planning on hosting a larger event that requires food, drinks and maybe even canapes it may require a little more thought. It might be easier for you to ask for a pre-order in advance so you can plan for the exact amount you need to purchase. This saves you money and helps reduce food waste.

Deposits

Organising an event that you put a lot of time, money and resources into can be risky if people decide to not turn up on the day. Therefore, it may be worth putting a deposit in place to secure spaces and to help ensure you won’t be losing out if customers decide not to attend.

It’s also a great way to let customers know that their place is guaranteed, so they don’t need to worry about turning up without a booking.

Ticketing

For the larger parties, such as themed events, New Year’s Eve bashes and Christmas parties, may benefit from being ticketed. That way, you can charge a set price for the event.

You can also use the tickets to distribute information about the event, so customers know exactly what to expect in terms of things such as timings, dress code, venue address and food available.

Capacity of the event

You know your restaurant’s capacity, so ensure you work that into you event planning. If you’re wanting to host a larger event, ask yourself whether you have the resources, space, facilities and staffing to make it an enjoyable experience for all.

This could also go the other way, if you have a larger venue but are wishing to host a more intimate event, then ensure customers aren’t just walking into a large, empty space. Work the space to your advantage to create the best possible experience for your guests.

Will normal service be disrupted?

If you’re planning on hosting an event in your restaurant during regular service, then it would be good to ask yourself whether the drinkers and diners not involved in the event will be affected.

If you plan to continue normal service, then be sure to have enough staff on hand to run both the event and the normal running of the restaurant. That way, your staff or customers shouldn’t get overloaded.

If you think that normal service could be affected by the event, then it may be worth allocating a certain night to your party without the need for regular service. That way, you can put more time and resources into ensuring the night is a success.

Need to promote your restaurant event?

In this article we’ve looked at how you can turn your restaurant into an event space and the key considerations when starting to plan events for the first time as well as the benefits to your business of hosting events. But one of the main concerns you might have is promotion – how do you make your event a success?

There are plenty of ways you can promote your restaurant or event to attract both new and existing customers, including email and social media campaigns, both of which work very well for restaurants and venues outside of busy urban areas. For venues in larger cities and towns with a competitive market we highly recommend utilising an online discovery platform like designmynight.com.

Your potential customers can search their specific city by venue type or by ‘what’s on’ this weekend/today/tomorrow or by specific date. Hosting interesting events can be a great way to get your venue discovered online and attract new customers. Our consumer facing online search for hospitality venues also serves as a booking partner, enabling potential customers to book a table or tickets to an event directly through the website.

Designmynight.com could provide you with the perfect marketing platform to help you:

• Promote your venue
• Increase exposure
• Generate bookings

You can also talk to the Access Hospitality team about online booking and ticketing solutions to help you generate pre-booked business and run events.