Restaurant week : is there an upside for the biz?

[CarLuver]

Right now I am waiting for friends for restaurant week . We always go to these restaurants . But it’s about the only time we do .

I sometimes think what is the upside for the restraurants to offer these deals .

Have you ever gone to a restaurant for a special and gone back when it was no longer on special?

 

[JayhawkRoy]

We have done it several times at Pierpont's at Union Station, KCMO. During Restaurant Week, we got a dish that was not on their normal menu. We also enjoy the ambiance and the food.

 

[Kira]

We also enjoy the ambiance

Yeah, I always thought restaurant weeks were to get people to go out and experience new and different restaurants....as well as trying different cuisines.

If the OP takes it only as a "one week sale" on old favorites, that's OK too.
Hey CarLuver, what community is having an upcoming RW?

The last time we had one near me, we hit as many restaurants as we could schedule.

 

[rijndael]

My wife and I found our favorite restaurant from a restaurant week promo. What they may have lost on the margin that first night they've made back way more in becoming a regular.

 

[AZjeff]

Never heard of it.?

 

[rijndael]

Never heard of it.?

All of the restaurants in the area get together and come up with a dinner deal for a fixed price, during a 1 week period. For example, some restaurants do a $30 tier and other ones will do a $50 tier.

The one that hooked us was an app/entree/dessert for $50. I got a good appetizer, filet mignon main course, plus desert for $50. You had a couple of options for each app/entre/desert. And it was perfectly done. We've been back probably 50 times since then.

Here's a sample:

 

[SC Maintenance]

Way too crowded here - tourist destination, so hard pass.

If your OK with the crowds - sure why not? Yes its a promo to get you to try it. Win / win.

 

[Kira]

I remember one in the year 1996.
The involved restaurants offered LUNCHES priced at $19.96.

 

[Pablo]

People make posts, no location given.

Never made any sense to me.

 

[doitmyself]

People make posts, no location given.

Never made any sense to me.

I'm in Michigan?

 

[Pablo]

I'm in Michigan?

OP is where?

 

[97prizm]

Right now I am waiting for friends for restaurant week . We always go to these restaurants . But it’s about the only time we do .

I sometimes think what is the upside for the restraurants to offer these deals .

Have you ever gone to a restaurant for a special and gone back when it was no longer on special?

Sometimes they like to try new dishes to gage interest or see what the public might be wanting.

 

[CarLuver]

OP is where?

Seattle

https://srweek.org/

 

[Pablo]

Seattle

https://srweek.org/

Thanks

The larger problem is Seattle

 

[bdcardinal]

They do the same thing here. They will also do a Burger Week and a Taco/Burrito week. Its a good reason to try a new place, but I usually fall back to the same few places I go to the most often.

 

[duck__dodgers]

almost free advertising to a self-selecting crowd of people who have a higher odd of being regular diners. restaurants have high fixed costs, so four mouths that are barely profitable beats zero mouths.

And "restaurant weeks" tend to be timed when the restaurants already have a slowdown due to the local peculiarities---around me it's January, cuz I live on Hoth. lmao.

 

[Patman]

Any time a business runs a low cost special to get you in the door they hope to grab new customers that will return again and again. And it must pay off otherwise they wouldn’t participate in the future.

An example up here is that a lot of the Niagara wineries will participate in wine festivals, where you basically pay only $10 per winery (sometimes less!) and that gets you one glass of wine and a small food pairing. They make nothing on that (maybe even lose some money) but they hope that you will buy a few bottles of their wines and/or become a repeat customer in the future. When my girlfriend and I recently visited 9 different wineries under a festival like that, she bought wine from 4 or 5 of them and she wants to return again to some of them. And another factor is word of mouth too. When businesses open their doors and people have a good experience, they tell their friends about it.

On the flip side, if a restaurant treats these customers with less respect because they’re not making any money from them, they run the risk of getting bad mouthed. So they need to have just as good customer service as they would with a customer who is paying full price. You never know how much business you might be losing when you treat someone “lesser” on these special events

 

[doitmyself]

Loss Leader - think Costco hot dogs and rotisserie chicken.

 

[AZjeff]

Loss Leader - think Costco hot dogs and rotisserie chicken.
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With a yearly gross revenue of $260 million per store they could give them away.

It's probably easier today to quantify the success of restaurant days.

 

[y_p_w]

I remember once I was in Miami Beach and was looking around for a nice place to eat since I was mostly eating takeout in my hotel room, preparing my own meals (my room had a mini kitchen), or fast food. Did have a few really good meals that were cheap during that trip. I found a place that was quite good and spent maybe $60. But then I walked around and saw signs that it was Restaurant Week where there were similar restaurants with $25-30 specials. The place I went to didn't participate. I just wanted one really nice meal during that trip, so I didn't really have any regrets.