8 Ideas for Restaurant Holiday Promotions & Events

For restaurant operators, the holidays are not just a time to eat, drink and be merry; they’re a time to maximize revenue before traffic and sales slow in January.

Restaurant holiday promotions are an important part of this strategy, but with every restaurant in town competing for the same share of wallet, it’s risky to roll out the “same old” ideas people have seen before.

Operators need unique restaurant promotion ideas that cut through the clutter while tapping into the seasonal customer mindset. We’ve curated some of our favorite examples below to help operators plan this year’s festivities.

Social Media Gift Giveaways

Social media giveaways are a smart marketing tactic any time of year, but they’re especially relevant — and likely to be successful — during holiday season, when people are looking for gift ideas for friends and family. Promoting a gift box and asking people to tag their friends in the comments, as Saxby’s did on Instagram, works well because it’s an easy prompt that users can complete quickly. It also encourages viral sharing that drives more people to your account.

Read more: Social Media Marketing for Restaurants: 10 Keys to Success

Holiday Gift Cards

If you don’t have a holiday gift box package, you can still turn holiday gifting into a revenue driver. Gift cards make for terrific last-minute gifts, and technology has made it easier than ever to buy and redeem them. Rosa Mexicano, a restaurant brand with locations across the Mid-Atlantic, demonstrated this by selling holiday gift cards through its website. Although it sold digital gift cards, it marketed the promotion with a seasonal photoshoot of physical gift cards that made things extra enticing.

Read more: 3 Reasons to Sell Gift Cards During the Holidays

Tree Lighting Ceremonies

Tap into festive traditions that bring people together. Red Hook Lobster Pound has set a great blueprint for this with its annual outdoor tree lighting ceremony. Their tree is adorned with lobster traps rather than ornaments, a perfect example of demonstrating brand personality through a restaurant event.

Holiday Dinner & Movie Nights

Few things tap into the holiday spirit better than holiday movies. Many of the classics have withstood the test of time, allowing parents to share traditions from their childhood with their kids. Combine that with hearty winter comfort food, as Pasta Louise did with last year’s outdoor showing of the Home Alone movies, and you have an event that’s sure to attract interest. Just to be safe, Pasta Louise also marketed the event on social media, directing followers to their website to buy event tickets.

Holiday-Themed Trivia

If you don’t have a place to screen holiday movies, that doesn’t mean you can’t tap into the passion surrounding them. Vida Taco Bar in Severna, Maryland, hosts weekly trivia nights all year, but during holiday season it themed one week’s trivia night to be about the movie A Christmas Story. It’s a subtle, but still festive, way to make your events more seasonal.

Holiday Cocktail Workshops

Whether they’re hosting an event, attending one or enjoying a quiet night in, the holidays are time for people to treat themselves to nicer drinks than usual. Holiday cocktail workshops teach diners how to make restaurant-style drinks for all of those occasions. Tickets to expert events like this also make for great gifts from friends and significant others, who are looking for inspiration throughout the season. Acclaimed Chicago cocktail destination Machine made its workshop especially tempting by teaching guests unreleased holiday recipes.

Holiday Entertaining Classes

When it comes to hosting a holiday party, cooking and mixology aren’t the only things customers can learn from restaurants. They can also learn the finer points of hospitality. After all, many restaurants serve guests 365 days a year, whereas holiday hosts serve them once or twice. Cheesetique, a cheese shop in Alexandria, Virginia, centered its holiday entertaining class around how to prepare a world-class wine and cheese spread — a great example of how to tailor a broad event idea to a specific concept.

Ugly Sweater Events

Ugly sweaters have become an ironic holiday tradition for many partygoers. Restaurants can tap into this by hosting events that require (or strongly encourage) guests to wear ugly sweaters, giving people who love the tradition a reason to fish their favorite sweater out from the closet and hit the town.