Best Food And Beverage Restaurant Promotion Ideas

The 15 Best Food and Beverage Restaurant  Promotion Ideas for restaurant owner

1. Leverage a Big Local Event

Plan a promotion around a big event nearby, like a local sporting event, concert, or marathon. This helps drive business and generate awareness of your restaurant to a large audience. You’ll essentially be riding off the coattails of that event’s marketing. 

Examples: Offer 5% off to people who have a ticket to a local hockey game, 

2. Charities & Celebrities

Bringing in a best food blogger or influencer, especially if they’re local, can be inexpensive. You can potentially entice them by donating a portion of the day’s proceeds to a charity of their choosing. Joining forces with a big name will not only draw people to your restaurant but show the community that you care about a good cause. Most food influencers will promote your restaurant on their social media platforms in exchange for a free best food and beverage.

3. Holidays

How can you celebrate the holidays with your customers? What will inspire them to share, link, and tag you in the event content they post on their social channels? Create an event that’s so special they can’t resist  posting about it — and bring their friends back next year.

Examples: Halloween costume contests featuring giveaways or gifts, a different offering for each of the twelve days of Christmas, an ask to share their own love story on social media for a chance at a free dinner on Valentine’s Day, or a Mother’s Day trivia event.

4. Loyalty Offerings

The key is picking a high enough threshold for a free meal or a discount to make it worthwhile for you. It helps to get your guests to opt in easily with the use of restaurant loyalty technology.

Examples: Buy nine coffees and get one free, purchase every beer on the list and get 10% off beers for the year. 

5. Bundling and Fixed Price Offerings

Some restaurant POS systems can help you see how your menu items are faring in inventory reporting which helps you set up promotions. If a certain dish isn’t exactly flying out the door, attach it to one of the more popular ones, at a discounted price best food and beverage.

6. Get Them in the Door

Another surefire strategy is to heavily discount a section of your menu that’s filled with items that aren’t typically eaten by themselves – like sides, snacks, and soups. These promotions are often called the “get them in the doors,” because they’re used to get someone in to make their first purchase, and then pushes them to buy more. Make sure to post deals like this online-Examples: Discount salty =pretzels that’ll inspire someone to buy beers.

7. Down Time

Run promotions during slow times, to draw customers in when your restaurant is near empty and staff is underutilized. You can also run promotions for your online ordering or food delivery too, like free delivery or deals on slower days.

Examples: Run drink specials or trivia or music events on slow nights like Tuesday or Wednesday, offer discounts that start at 4pm and end by 5:30, or try out a late night menu for best food.

8. Community Events

Allowing local organizations to use your space taps into their network and – bonus – they’ll do all the promoting for you.  If you don’t want to host an event, consider doing a profit share for the group in need. Donate part (or all) of the profits you make during a specific time period.

Example: Donate 50% of profits from your Thursday happy hour to funding the local sports team.

9. Buy in Bulk and Upsell

Similar to loyalty promotions, the key here is knowing the average amount customers spend on a certain item, and then offering a small discount if they spend slightly more. 

Examples: Knock five dollars off an appetizer with the purchase of a $50 or more gift card, or give away a free beer for every two orders of wings.

10. Launches & Openings

Time promotions with the launch of new menu items or the openings of new locations. It’s a great way to earn a bit of money back for obvious investments. 

Example: To highlight the opening of a second (or third) location, invite regulars to attend the soft opening and preview new menu items for best food and beverage.

11. Takeout and Delivery Special Event Catering

Customers that appreciate your food may want to hire you to cater more than just a two-person dinner. Try creating a set holiday takeout and delivery menu — guests are willing to splurge this time of year, and the convenience of not having to cook for the holidays (but still enjoy a cozy meal at home) is priceless. 

12. Virtual Access

Whether it’s through video, augmented reality, or some other platform, insights on the menu or bar prep can increase the emotional investment customers have in your team, your business, and your food. 

Example: You can offer video tutorials on how to cook favorite dishes or even offer a virtual tour of the kitchen pre-opening. These can be add-ons or special offerings to customers who visit the restaurant regularly or spend a certain amount.

13. Collaborations With Third-Party Deliverers

Is your restaurant still trying to get in-person attendance back to where it was pre-pandemic? Is your new location in a not-so-easy-to-find part of town? A third-party delivery partner can work with you to offer customers in a mega-wide radius discounted dishes, helping to promote the restaurant as well as certain menu items — and with Toast’s those orders will come straight to your POS (no more juggling tablets). This way you can reach new customers that are located a little further away.

Example: Designate one menu item as delivery-only and promote it heavily on your social media.

14. Pop-Ups

A pop-up or food truck parked in a popular area allows people to experience your menu in non-traditional surroundings.

Example: Take your new or most popular items to an outdoor brewery, nearby farmer’s market, or another open-air setup to engage customers and promote menu items.

15. Old School Promotion Tactics

We’re definitely in a digital age, but that doesn’t make old school outreach obsolete. Word of mouth does exist!

Example: Send direct mail that previews new menu items. They can contain discount codes to be used when brought back to the physical location. Email marketing is a more modern way