For plenty of us, the holidays mean having family come over and spend plenty of time together. For many businesses, especially for Tampa restaurants, the holidays can mean a significant bump in business, but it can get really hectic. Restaurants have to deal with this more than other businesses, because families are often taking out-of-town relatives for a meal out, and they’re usually swamped with diners.
A good restaurant knows how to manage their in-house system to make sure that it’s not too much for anybody. If you’re curious to see how Tampa restaurants handle the holiday rush, here are some ways that they set up a system to make things more manageable.
Give customers a heads up with the new schedule
Of course, if you don’t want any unexpected surprises during the holiday season, you should always inform customers about your new schedule. Post it where customers can easily see it, on your social media, your website, even on your front door if you have too.
Pulling off a successful holiday rush depends significantly on having your customers be aware of your new schedules so that you can plan around them. This includes informing them if you’re going to be open during the actual holidays and what hours your restaurant will be open.
Plan for the actual holidays themselves
A lot of people think that during the actual holidays, people stay home to cook and eat with their family. However, restaurants fill up really quickly during the holidays, and these are usually comprised of entire families.
To help the kitchen handle so many orders, restaurants usually have a “prix-fixe menu”, or a fixed menu. Diners don’t order from the restaurant’s menu as they normally would, the restaurant would offer a fixed menu of items and everyone is served more or less the same thing.
By only creating a specific number of menu items, there is less pressure on the kitchen to catch up with orders, which helps things flow easier.
Inventory
If you’re expecting a large number of people during the holidays, then you should definitely be prepared. Restaurants often order a surplus of inventory to help make up the numbers. This is especially useful so that you don’t run out of menu items in the middle of dinner service.
Set up a reservation system
During the holiday season, if Tampa restaurants are usually running a walk-in system, it might be a good idea to implement a reservation system to make sure that they have enough staff and resources for the holidays.
You can implement a full reservation system or have a rule that parties that meet a specific number of people or higher have to reserve ahead of time.