Liam Crooks, MD of EMEA at Lightspeed, a unified ePOS and payments solution that powers ambitious retailers and restaurateurs worldwide to fight the boring in business, shares his top four tips to businesses in the UK to capitalise on Valentine’s Day.
Manage your reservations
To ensure both guests and your restaurant staff are happy this Valentine’s Day, it’s crucial to be strategic in handling bookings, as well as how you take a table’s order once they’re seated. Taking the following approach will make a world of difference to your diner’s service experience:
- Stagger tables— Don’t book several tables at the same time. Book two tables at a time instead, one pair every 15 minutes.
- Emphasise etiquette— It’s important to emphasise tactfully to your guests that they’re expected to be punctual. Be firm on this point. Nothing throws service out of whack like tables turning up late or turning up and ordering at different times.
- By having a set Valentine’s menu, you can ask customers to order all courses at once— this will make it easier for the kitchen to organise and get the dishes out promptly.
Offer a takeaway option
You’re also going to have couples who prefer a quiet night in than a visit to a restaurant. You can reach them too, so why not put together a romantic Valentine’s Day meal box package to enjoy at home?
This can be a supplement to your Valentine’s menu, just make sure the dishes you offer travel well and aren’t too difficult to prepare once they’ve arrived at the customer’s door.
Offer a proposal package
It should be no surprise that Valentine’s Day is the most popular day for couples to get engaged, with as many as 6 million couples getting engaged on February 14th each year**. For those looking to pop the question, create a proposal package with a set meal for two that includes a complimentary bouquet of flowers and a bottle of champagne or wine. This is great for both to-go and in-house guests alike.
Make the most of your menu
Valentine’s Day is an opportunity for your chefs to try out new seasonal dishes. But this isn’t your everyday a la carte menu; you need to consider which dishes are well-suited to a romantic dinner.
Offering a varied menu to include an array of plant-based and low and no alcohol options means you’ll be able to attract a multitude of customers. Bonus points for having menus that include eco-conscious and sustainable choices, as our research has shown that 36% of Britons*** are actively seeking restaurants that have robust sustainability initiatives in place.
Another opportunity to consider putting in place for Valentine’s Day is data capture on menu and dish choices from your menu. Data gathered from every transaction processed is automatically captured, analysed, then delivered right back to the restaurateur to offer a real-time understanding of which dishes customers are enjoying the most.
Featured Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash.