While we’re generally riding happy during the holiday season, there’s always an inevitable lull that happens just after the holidays. We call this time during January and February the post-holiday blues. With some planning, though, you can still increase sales and get people to pass through your doors.
Evaluation
Since you’ve got the time available, take a look at your operation and your menu. What’s working? What’s not? What new recipes can you put on the menu that fully uses your superior kitchen equipment?
Go Local
We’ve talked about gaining local loyalty for your food and your restaurant. The slow winter months make the perfect time to do outreach to that local community. Maybe the youth hockey team would like to eat in your establishment? By devoting the little extra to marketing, you can cultivate customers for the entire year.
Develop a Special Event
Maybe you’ve always wanted to run a professionally judged barbeque? Is there something that’s been on your mind the whole year, but you’ve just been too busy to execute it? Special events can be huge or tiny, it’s just what you make of it.
Partnering Opportunities
This goes back to the cultivation of local foods and ideas for your restaurant. Are there groups, charities, or other organizations that you could partner with to help bring people through the door of your establishment. Maybe you could show your support for firefighters?
Run a Few Specials
Don’t be afraid to run a special or two during this time of year. Maybe try out a loss leader and then see where that leads you? There are certain coupon type places that you could partner with for a limited time so that you could offer excellent deals on items that never sell.
Planning
Plan, plan, plan. Remember that 100% of the shots that you don’t take, don’t score. You’ve got a lot of free time on your hands, so you should make the most of it through planning. Perhaps you could start a blog about the business? Maybe something more social? The more planning you do, the more likely it is to be successful.
Try out your plans, do some small-scale craziness and implementation. It’s the slow time of the year, but that doesn’t mean that your restaurant has to be the slowest. What can you do to make it better?
Thanks go out to Shando Darby on Flickr for the Creative Commons use of the picture.
