How Restaurant Events Have Adapted to COVID-19
From micro-weddings to private buyouts, here’s how restaurant events have changed
Restaurant events are a healthy revenue stream for restaurants. By offering a private dining room or catered options, it’s an opportunity to provide guests with a unique experience for any occasion. At the moment there’s a common misconception that COVID-19 has ended events as we knew it. The truth is: they adapted. Restaurants have adjusted their offerings to meet the new normal for their guests.
6 Types of Events That Restaurants Are Offering Right Now
Here are the top event types of 2020 and what we anticipate will evolve in the year ahead as COVID-19 continues. These have been trending across the country since restaurants began reopening.
Micro Wedding Reception
With 96% of weddings in 2020 being rescheduled from their original date and size, couples are trimming down numbers to have smaller events with immediate family and close friends. Restaurants can capitalize on this opportunity.
Micro weddings need three things:
- A space for dinner after the rehearsal
- Food for the bridal and groom suite the morning of the wedding
- A prix fixe dinner with full catering services during the wedding itself
Restaurants can tap into this opportunity, offering more affordable services for smaller groups than typical catering companies. Restaurants should use their website and marketing channels as a way to promote their services. For example, restaurants should have a clear “Events” page on the website that highlights the space, occupancy levels, tiered packages and more.
Francie in Brooklyn, NY highlights capabilities on the “Private Events” page of the website. Guests can inquire about the banquet room by filling out a simple inquiry form. For Francie, this inquiry is logged in the backend of the website, making it easy to manage. For restaurants using Events Management, they can quickly turn inquiries into proposals, book events, sign contracts and accept payment — all in one easy to manage space.
Semi-Private Birthday
Whether it’s a parent looking to book a private celebration for their kid, or a group planning a surprise party for someone entering a new decade, restaurants have an opportunity to meet the emerging demand for smaller gatherings. Restaurants across the country can drive higher-profit reservations by requiring contracts for these parties and offering to include additional amenities like balloons on chairs and specialized desserts for the table.
Patio or Indoor Dining Buyout
Restaurants can book events at a larger-scale and secure cash flow faster with group deposits by offering buyouts. Buyouts are a preferred option for restaurants as they garner high-profit margins. By knowing the number of guests in attendance, restaurants can better plan how much food and beverage to prepare as well as the appropriate amount of staff on duty. This helps minimize operational costs and boost bottom lines.
Perhaps an essential business wants to reserve an indoor space to have an employee appreciation event. Or a group of friends wants to buy out a patio space to safely see each other in person. Restaurants can accommodate these groups while keeping tables apart, partitions in place, and abiding by COVID-19 regulations. See an example of a private event brochure from Hearth, a restaurant in New York City.
Chef Dinners
Another great way to incentivize guests to reserve indoor space is to offer a special dining experience. Many restaurants are leveraging their chef, baker, sommeliers and bartenders to host special dinners. For example, Chicago’s Frontier promotes a collaborative dining experience with Frontier’s Chef Brian Jupiter and Virtue’s Chef Erick Williams.
Holiday Meals for Families
The holidays may look smaller this year, but immediate families will still be spending time together and many will want a break from at-home cooking. Families want a touch of something new. Restaurants can offer the gift of the on-premise dining experience in the homes of their guests. If a restaurant offers catering that is contract-based and pricing changes based on context, use a tool like Events Management to capture and qualify inquiries and send faster proposals.
Or restaurants can offer on-premise prix fixe menus for families that want to dine outside of their homes. Ilili in New York City does this by prompting online visitors to make reservations for their 4-course Thanksgiving dining experience.
Note: Make sure restaurant promotions have a clear call-to-action (CTA) to view a menu, make a reservation or to inquire about an event.
Group Seating for Gameday
As football season ramps up toward the holidays, offer guests the ability to guarantee space in front of the big screen, while requiring a food and beverage minimum and charging a premium for reserving the space for a longer duration of time. Restaurants can provide guests with menu packages that include wings, nachos, beer and more. Restaurants can also choose to charge per person, per food quantity or per hour.
Send contracts faster and capture paperless payment for booking group space with BentoBox, all through a restaurant’s website.
4 Ways to Win Back Time and Make More Money
Many restaurants today are managing private dining and catering contracts manually. They use their inbox to keep a handle on event status and other tools to create proposals and banquet event orders (BEOs) for their kitchen. The fact is, these manual tasks take up precious hours that operators don’t have time to waste.
Capture Qualified Inquiries — Online, Upfront
Asking guests to call or send an email with event inquiries actually adds unnecessary inefficiencies. Restaurants can capture all of the information they need upfront without back-and-forths by using an event inquiry form. BentoBox includes this free-of-charge on the restaurant’s website.
Stop Wasting Precious Time On Manual Tasks
Once an inquiry is received, a restaurant operator should be able to view it in one place and with other qualified events. Events Management helps restaurants to see event status without scrambling to different places. It also helps operators to create professional proposals in fewer clicks, with automatic banquet event orders (BEOs) for the kitchen and paperless payment to capture deposits faster. No more phone calls, forms, in-person checks, or faxes needed to chase down payment.
Get Inspired By Industry Peers
Instead of spending time brainstorming new event ideas or trying ones that aren’t yet vetted, look to other restaurants to follow a proven path to success.
Send A Survey To Customers
The best way to find out what guests want is to just ask them directly. Here’s a sample email a restaurant could send:
Subject line: [Survey] Eating at [restaurant name] with a group?
Email body:
Dear valued customer,
It is our goal to meet your needs as a valued member of the {restaurant name] community. Please send us your valuable feedback.
What private and off-premise events are you most interested in? Send us your answer here.
- Semi-private birthday
- Care packages for groups
- Group dining with social distancing via a different table per home
- Chefs dinner
- Prix fixe family meal
- Holiday catered meals at home
- Micro wedding
- Rehearsal dinner
Pro Tip: Make sure you link “here” in the email to a survey. Use Google Forms to create a survey!
Although COVID-19 is increasingly affecting the restaurant industry, restaurants are finding ways to get creative and adapt to the new normal. When it comes to events, restaurants can capture demand by revisiting event operations to provide a safe, low-risk environment for their guests. Whether it’s micro-wedding celebrations, full buyouts or reserved seating for gameday revelers, restaurants can use their website as a means of promoting in-house events as well as capturing and managing private inquiries. For more information on how Events Management can benefit your restaurant, get in touch with a BentoBox specialist today or reach out to your account manager for more details.
