Sometimes, restaurant owners have to think outside the box to keep their businesses afloat, and when they do, new restaurant industry trends are born.
The pandemic was one of those trying times that required a lot of creative thinking. To keep their dining establishments open and their staff employed, owners developed new ways of feeding people, from curbside pickups to offering to-go cocktail kits. If people couldn’t eat in the restaurant, the owners brought the restaurant to them.
Many of these ideas have become permanent additions to restaurant business models. These food service trends are attracting customers and keeping revenue steady. Here are the three most effective restaurant industry trends you should offer in your establishment.
1. Roll Out Daily and Weekly Specials
When selecting their dining experience, make your customers and community think of you first by creating daily and weekly specials. No matter the type of restaurant, regular and unique specials draw people to you.
Almost all restaurant-goers check the websites of their favorite joints before going out to eat—not only to find delicious dishes but also to see if coupons or discounts are available. According to Produce Blue Book, 51% of people polled said that a coupon or discount will entice them to try a restaurant, and 49% said the deals help them choose between restaurants. The benefits of offering daily or weekly specials include:
Decreased Food Waste
You know that the more food you throw away, the more dollars go out the door. You can use those extra ingredients by offering specials while increasing your profit. Less waste also makes your restaurant more sustainable, which is an essential factor for many diners when they are deciding where to go out to eat.
Increased Menu Flexibility
A menu that can adapt to market costs is a menu that saves you money. Daily and weekly specials can help your menu adjust to changing food costs as well as meet customers’ expectations and food trends.
Influence Choices
Psychologically, offering specials on menu items increases the likelihood of consumers choosing that dish. In today’s jargon, it’s called FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), and it can make your specials seem like a once-in-a-lifetime chance for a diner to order a dish they may have never tried or usually wouldn’t because it was too expensive.
How to Create Daily and Weekly Specials
There are a few things to keep in mind when creating specials. You can’t randomly choose a dish to offer at a discount or as a chef’s choice. You need to make sure the special will work for you. Consider these tips:
- If no one knows about the specials, there is little point in having them. Promote your deals online on social media and your website. If possible, include pictures that will entice your customers.
- Have your servers sell the specials to their diners with tantalizing descriptions.
- Alert potential customers to your specials with a posted menu or message board outside your establishment.
- Do market research on food trends and ingredient costs.
- Establish an excellent ingredient inventory system to help you determine what needs to be used up and design a special around those foods, eliminating a lot of food waste and decreasing your costs.
- Keep your specials simple and low-priced. Don’t create elaborate dishes that will slow kitchen-to-table time or use too many ingredients you must replace sooner than usual. Don’t overprice your special, either.
2. Offer Meal Kits to Heat and Eat
Not all customers can eat their meal right when they pick it up, and some dishes don’t transport well. Kitchen staff can adapt to this problem by creating heat-and-eat options and “meal kits.” Partially cook some items, package all the parts separately, and provide directions for how best to prepare once they have arrived at their final destination.
Madison restaurant Pasture & Plenty offers farm-to-freezer meal kits using locally sourced ingredients. Many other Midwestern restaurants are providing similar meal-kit-to-go creations. This creative restaurant response to changing dining trends keeps many restaurants in business and popular with new clientele.
Restaurants can market meal kits as plan-ahead options for one night or a week. Items could be pre-cooked and frozen to stock up on nights when you offer popular specials. Remind customers when they call to order a meal to go that there are meal kits to take home as well.
If you are wondering whether meal kits are worth having, consider that in 2023, the meal kit market was valued at 17.44 billion dollars and is expected to expand to $38.81 billion by 2029.
Benefits of Restaurant Meal Kits
- Offering meal kits from your dining establishment opens up a new revenue stream. Meal kit companies are often seen as restaurant competition, but if you create a hybrid dine-in and meal kit menu, you can give consumers what they want.
- Like daily and weekly specials, meal kits can help reduce food waste. With rising food costs, careful use of ingredients will be more critical to your bottom line.
- Adding variety to your menu and new ways customers can enjoy your food can increase profit, expand your business into other customer markets, create brand loyalty, and increase customer satisfaction.
3. Take the Bar Home with Carryout Cocktails
Depending on your restaurant’s liquor license and restrictions, you may be able to offer diners a drink or two to take home with their dinner. After all, nothing completes a meal like the perfect cocktail or a delicious wine pairing.
The lack of alcohol sales during the pandemic significantly impacted some restaurants. Some states have adjusted laws regarding alcohol delivery and carryout, giving restaurants a chance to regain some lost revenue. In 2022, 15% of restaurant and bar sales were due to carry out cocktails. The global trends for 2024 show that making to-go alcohol available is a very popular option, with a projected $440.18 billion growth from 2022 to 2027.
How to Make Cocktail Kits Work
- Find out your state and local alcohol laws. Luckily, many states have decided to allow restaurants to continue to offer alcohol-to-go and cocktail kits. If your restaurant qualifies, create a menu of carryout cocktails tailored to your customer base.
- Learn how to batch cocktails. Much like food prep, cocktail prep can cut down on wasted time. Be sure you have a good idea of how much you will need to make beforehand.
- Get suitable packaging. You need proper food-grade takeout containers, and you should also consider your restaurant’s brand and style.
- Be creative and fun. If your restaurant is known for making a fantastic mojito, sell them in large jars to go. Is your local crowd missing your world-famous margaritas? Find a way to sell them in larger bottles and pair them with your menu items and specials. Create special drinks for local events and national holidays that will draw community support.
Looking to the Future
The restaurant industry trends that started during the pandemic have endured and are now expected by many customers. Restaurant owners added specials, meal kits, and to-go drinks to make the best of a difficult situation, showing that creative restaurateurs will find impressive ways to survive any crisis. These changes are here to stay, and using them in your dining establishment can benefit both your customers and your wallet.
We need to focus on what is important to customers now, like offering to-go options, discounts, and healthy, sanitized safe spaces to dine in or take out. If our diners see our establishment is clean and our staff is concerned about customer wellness, they will likely return.
Embrace the “new normal” and these restaurant trends, keep thinking outside the box, and watch your customers appreciate your effort to keep them safe and make life a little easier. The dining options you provide can increase your profit margin, make customers loyal, and help spread the good word about your restaurant.
