How to make sure your restaurant, pub, or bar is ready for Christmas
There’s no such thing as ‘too early to think about Christmas’ when you work in hospitality. And after a bruising year that’s brought major challenges for the industry, December is more important than ever for many businesses.
When it comes to crafting the perfect festive atmosphere, you’re the experts there – we’re simply here to show you how getting things like your tech systems, menus, staffing, and gift cards sorted now, means you’ll
make the most of Christmas and manage your venue more effectively.
Optimise your offerings and boost profit margins
No doubt you’ll want to capture the spirit of the season with a festive menu. Roast meats and Christmas puddings are a must, but don’t forget a vegan option too. Whatever you choose, make sure your dishes balance popularity and profitability.
Recipe management tools let you input ingredient costs and amounts, so you get precise costs for every item on your menu. It then automatically calculates GP so you can easily set the right prices both for individual items and festive set menus. This works really well for food, but also for cocktails, and festive drinks you might make on-site, such as mulled wine or cider.
Using technology to manage bookings
When it comes to Christmas bookings, balance is key. You want more bums on seats, but you don’t want to overwhelm your kitchen and Front-of-House staff – especially when bookings around Christmas tend to be larger. A flexible booking system helps you maintain control.
Those office Christmas lunches often have ten or twenty guests, so it helps to keep them separate from your usual bookings. Asking for pre-orders and prepayments makes it much easier to manage those big complicated bookings. Email links go out to organisers so everything can be booked and paid for in advance. This guarantees your cash flow ahead of time and means your kitchen can prepare and ensure the right amount of stock. You can also create custom drink packages to upsell during the booking process.
Empowering your team for the festive rush
It's the personal, human touch that makes Christmas special for your guests. Make sure your staff are ready to provide it.
Get staffing levels right
Keeping staff happy in the festive season is hard, especially if they all want Christmas Eve off. Staff scheduling software makes it easier to distribute shifts and time off fairly, and respond to any leave requests well in a timely manner to minimise last-minute disruption.
It can pull sales data from previous Christmases, as well as upcoming bookings, so you can see how busy you’re likely to be at a glance, and build your rota accordingly.
Make sure there’s enough tech to support staff
With higher footfall, the last thing you need is waiting staff queuing at the EPOS to input orders or barstaff holding up customers while they wait for card readers to be free. Consider adding more POS devices to your venue. Our system can be downloaded onto any iPad, and used as a fixed or mobile POS. We also offer a handheld POS that waiting staff can use to take orders and payments at the tableside.
Our
flexible pay-monthly packages mean you can add devices when things start to ramp up, and remove them when you quieten down in January, so you only ever pay for what you use, when you use it.
Keep staff motivated
Communicate regularly with staff in the lead-up and during the festive period. Keep them up to date with any operational changes such as menus, table plans and special events. And make sure to recognise their effort during this intense period to keep motivation and standards high.
Make sure you’ve got a handle on the distribution of tips across your team. Good EPOS systems should make it seamless for customers to tip, and have simple tools for fair and effective distribution.
If you’re hiring additional staff, a simple, intuitive EPOS is priceless. It cuts training time when you need everyone on your floor in full swing (our system is
‘so easy to use you could train a monkey to do it’ according to one of our pub customers).
Marketing and maximising revenue
So you’ve settled on your festive menu, got your systems in place, and prepared your staff to delight guests over Christmas. Now it’s time to tempt people in.
Think about some festive promotions and offers to stand out and encourage visitors. These can be tied in with your Christmas menu – maybe a 2-for-1 deal on your festive cocktail, or discounted Christmas lunches for kids.
Of course, many guests will experience your venue for the first time at Christmas – a perfect chance to gain more regular customers. As well as special offers,
loyalty schemes and digital stamp cards are a great way to encourage people to come back in January when trade quietens down.
Gift cards are also a great way to generate revenue over Christmas. Let customers buy eGift cards on your website and send them directly to recipients via email, so they’re hassle-free for both your venue and customers. Great for those last-minute Christmas Eve purchases (some eGift card providers take commission on every one purchased – we don’t, it’s all included in the subscription).
Make sure you shout about your offers and promotions. Facebook is great for targeting local consumers, while Instagram’s visually-led platform is fantastic for showcasing your mouthwatering products and Christmassy venue all decked out. You could even go further and try some holiday-themed competitions and giveaways.
Email marketing is another good way to stay in touch with guests. Booking systems should give you the option to sign up guests to your mailing list when they book, and store their details securely so you can send them
targeted offers and promotions.
Tech that helps you thrive this festive season
A successful Christmas period at your venue needs organisation and effective planning. And with so much to organise, from your festive menus and staff schedules to your offers and marketing, the right tech is crucial. If you value simplicity, efficiency and value for money, a system that brings all those operations into one integrated, streamlined system should be top of your Christmas list.
Our onboarding specialists can set you up in a matter of days, and dedicated support experts respond within minutes in your dedicated Telegram channel, helping you resolve any issues that might crop up.
Speak to our experts, try our EPOS system for free, and see how it can transform your operations in time for Christmas.
