The following strategies aim to help you get a better understanding of your dining concept, your guests’ behavior and spending habits, as well as improve profitability. 

You can choose to implement one or more at the same time. As you’ll notice from the list below, many of these strategies are designed for long-term success. 

1. Identify slow and peak seasons

Before you can forecast and attempt to increase your restaurant’s revenues, you first need to understand when you’re busy and when you’re not. 

Bla Bla Dubai’s guest relations manager Reinhart Britz says Mondays are usually the slowest day of the week. Peak days tend to be Friday nights and the weekend.

This is the case for most countries where the weekend is Saturday and Sunday. For those with a Friday and Saturday weekend, peak days are Thursday nights, Fridays, and Saturdays. 

You can review this information by looking at your restaurant management system or restaurant point-of-sale (POS) system. It’ll show you the days with the largest numbers of bills and the days with the highest values made.

If you’ve been operational for two or more years, you can compare this data with the previous year to see a trend in guest visits. 

You’ll need to identify your

• Busiest days of the week

• Busiest shifts or hours 

• Busiest months

From there, you can determine the days, shifts, and months with the lowest demand to implement revenue management strategies to boost sales and profits.

2. Add restaurant booking integrations

Restaurant booking platforms are a great way to increase foot traffic, online reservations, and ultimately revenues. Booking integrations vary from one country to another.

If you’re using a restaurant reservation management system, like Servme, you’ll find booking integrations relevant to your country. 

For example, Servme integrates with Zomato and Tripadvisor, The Chefz and webook in Saudi Arabia, Afternoon Tea in the UK, among others.

Restaurants can also get direct reservations from Facebook and Instagram and Reserve with Google. 

However, knowing when your busiest days and hours are, you can enable or disable bookings from those platforms.

For example, if your busiest days are Thursdays and Fridays, you can disable online bookings to cater to walk-in guests. 

On the other hand, during the slow season, you can enable all those booking channels to maximize bookings and revenues. 

3. Make use of reservation and waitlist management software 

Using a reservation and waitlist management system, like Servme, helps you streamline various restaurant operations. 

From managing staff shifts to automating table combinations to seat large groups quickly, and managing online and offline waitlists, there’s much you can do.

Besides streamlining reservations and waitlists, the reservation system automatically creates guest profiles when a booking is made. This enables you to build a robust restaurant CRM that provides insights into guest behavior, helping you implement effective revenue management strategies for your restaurant.

Some reservation and table management systems, like Servme, include marketing features such as email, SMS, and WhatsApp Business for restaurants.

Further reading: 10+ Restaurant Email Marketing Campaign Ideas for Better Sales & Retention

4. Improve table turnover 

Table turnover, or how often tables are occupied, is a critical factor in restaurant revenue management. Optimizing turnover requires balancing guest satisfaction with efficient service to maximize revenue.

Understanding your dining concept’s turnover rate is key to improving operations and increasing profitability.

For example, if you notice guests staying for a short period during lunch, but 2 hours for dinner, you can add staff during lunch hours to speed up service for guests.

Further reading: 11 Ways to Improve Your Restaurant’s Table Turnover Rate

5. Secure revenue and reduce no-show guests

Dining concepts that collect online deposits and prepayments for reservations improve revenue generation and management.

First, collecting online deposits means you can secure a portion of your revenues in advance. Second, it can help you reduce no-shows and last-minute cancellations, which result in 15% fewer revenues per service. Third, deposits help you maintain staff and reduce employee turnover.

When collecting deposits, restaurants should notify guests how it works. For most restaurants, this means holding the deposit till the guest arrives and then deducting the deposit from the final bill. 

Bla Bla Dubai does this same. However, if the guests don’t show up, the restaurant retains the deposit to reduce their losses from the no-show.

There are several ways you can secure online deposits, including

• Require all online and in-person bookings to pay a deposit, sometimes referred to as a reservation fee. For offline bookings, you can generate a payment link through Servme to collect the deposit. The guest will receive an SMS with the payment link.

• Only confirm reservations for large groups when they pay a deposit (you can do so using Servme’s reservation widget).

• For fixed-price menus, you can collect the full fee in advance, with add-ons to be ordered later at the restaurant and billed separately.

Further reading: Here’s How to Create a Restaurant No-Show Policy [Templates Included]

6. Use upselling and cross-selling strategies with POS 

Use your POS system to track guest order history and identify favorites. Recommend these items to returning guests, by upselling and cross-selling favorite items, to create a truly personalized guest experience. 

Integrating your POS with Servme, you can access detailed guest profiles, including dietary preferences and special requests like ‘removing the chili’ or ‘using almond milk.’

7. Consider a fixed-price menu 

Fixed-price menus offer a set price for multiple courses, often with limited choices within each course. 

This revenue management strategy streamlines service by including variations like breakfast menus with coffee, or lunch/dinner menus with appetizers, salads, and desserts.

Restaurants also use this tactic to manage inventory, increase footfall during slow hours and days, and encourage faster decisions. 

8. Create special events 

Many dining concepts are adding flavors to their dining experience with events. These vary from musical events, like those held at Bla Bla Dubai, to dining events like Mexican Night and Italian Flavor…etc. 

Bla Bla, which boasts a pool, restaurant, and 21 bars, runs non-dining events like Ducking Fridays, and Ladies’ Day on Tuesdays. The purpose is to keep guests coming back on slower weekdays and increase their weekly revenues.  

Use restaurant event management software, like Servme, to promote upcoming events, sell tickets, and collect bookings for your dining concept.

Discover How Bla Bla Dubai Creates Memorable Experiences for 650,000+ Guests Each Year with Servme

9. Create FOMO with seasonal menu items 

Improve revenue management and create FOMO (fear of missing out) with seasonal and limited-edition menus. 

Common among coffee shop brands, more restaurants are using this strategy to boost reservations and footfall during their slow season. 

Ideas for seasonal menus include: Mother’s Day events and foods, Halloween menu ideas for restaurants, Valentine’s Day menus, among others.

Restaurants in the Middle East also do this when preparing their restaurant for Ramadan. Many concepts offer special Ramadan menu items, especially beverages and desserts.

10. Create special offers for companies 

Another way to boost your restaurant business’s revenues is to create partnerships with companies with hundreds and thousands of employees. 

This may vary by country, but consider corporations that house several companies or brands under the same umbrella. 

The Orascom group of companies offers a card with discounts at various retailers and restaurants to its 1000+ employees. Similarly, partnering with banks and making offerings for their credit card users is a great idea. 

In the United States, many restaurants have special offers for American Express credit card owners. In the UAE, all banks offer tiered benefits for their credit card customers. You can make your offering for Platinum or Gold card users, for example. One of the most popular is Emirates NBD’s credit and debit card offerings. You can make your offering for Platinum or Gold card users, for example.