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How to Fill Your Restaurant - Part 5 – Banish Monday and Tuesday Blues

Welcome to the final day of “How to Fill Your Restaurant”. In compiling this collection of ideas, we really enjoyed talking to restaurant owners and managers. There are lots of really good ideas out there which could work for you. Give them a try.

Our final topic is “Banish Monday and Tuesday Blues!”

Almost every owner we talked to reported that Monday and Tuesday evenings are the hardest to fill. Of course, your restaurant may be different – your challenge may be lunchtimes or the winter season.

Whenever the problem, with 20 ideas to choose from in this final chapter, help is at hand.

• Find evening classes or interest groups which meet on your quiet day and invite all of them to your restaurant with a special offer. If possible, go in person to invite them.



• Advertise one of your quiet nights as a special taster session. Diners are offered the option of trying new dishes which chef is developing. Invite your customers to fill in “tasting cards” as they go along. Remember to let everyone on your list of e-mail addresses know about this great event.



• Offer discounts the families of your staff who dine on quiet evenings. Give them a great meal and they will be proud to tell all their friends about the restaurant at which their auntie, daughter or Dad works.



• Offer a special menu available only on Monday or Tuesday. Try to include genuinely interesting and not just cheap dishes.


Charles House Fusion, Winchester offered a 30% discount to customers at the beginning of the week. By tempting people in to sample their excellent food, the restaurant built up a clientele of regulars and have now been able to restrict their offer to lunchtimes.




• Develop a loyalty card scheme. Make the loyalty points worth more on Mondays and Tuesdays.





• Offer an “all you can eat option” to fill tables. Make it fun e.g. all the chocolate cake you can eat. Collect pictures and contact the press with stories from your “All the Chocolate Cake You Can Eat” evenings.



• Run a promotion where you put all of the bills from the evening into a hat. The first one pulled out gets a refund on all of the main courses from their table (up to a maximum of 4). Diners do not need to stay to win but set a time for the draw and many will stay a bit longer to find out the result. Remember to offer them drinks whilst they wait.



• Distribute leaflets in your local area announcing that every Monday is “No Cook Monday”. You will offer families a meal at a special price to save any of them having to cook on a Monday. If they come in two or more Mondays in a month offer them a special discount.



• Find out who influences people to come to your restaurant e.g. the staff in the tourist office, taxi drivers and offer them special Monday and Tuesday deals.



• Offer a meal for two on a specific day of the week as a prize for a competition for your local radio station or newspaper. Remember to follow up by contacting the press with your story about the winner.



• Offer regular customers a reward if, on a Monday evening, they bring in a friend who has never eaten at your restaurant before.



• At quiet times ask a member of staff to hand out copies of your menu in the area surrounding your restaurant offering an instant discount to customers who walk in for a meal. Works especially well if you are in an area with lots of restaurants. Many people will come to the area without having made a final decision on where to eat before they get there.


Run a loss leader to fill your restaurant. A pizza restaurant could, for example, offer garlic bread for 1p when purchased with a main course.


• Approach local groups with special offers e.g. parents who attend toddler groups with their children, football teams, Neighbourhood Watch and encourage them to arrange a group meal perhaps on a Tuesday.



• Develop good relationships with key suppliers by inviting them and their family members in for a free meal at quiet times.



• Set up a special loyalty club e.g. the Tuesday Club.



• If lunchtimes are your quiet times, entice in office workers on short lunch breaks by offering a pre-order service by telephone or e-mail. This is another initiative tried by Charles House Fusion. To make the telephone and e-mail ordering easier, the restaurant has created “Business Boxes” which contain a set range of options. In less than 6 months, take up on Business Boxes has increased to over 150 meals per week and the scheme has had a significant impact on the profitability of the restaurant.



• Offer a meal for two during a quiet period as a prize at a local fete.



• Target price sensitive groups e.g. students with special offers on quiet evenings.



Hope that you have enjoyed our five part report. Please let us know of the most effective ways in which you have found new customers and increased profits at your restaurants. We will add in the best ideas as a new Part 6 to this report.

If you would like to find out more about what www.localserviceguide.com can do to help you to “Fill Your Restaurant”, give us a call on 01962 856000 and ask for Caroline. Alternatively, email via the contact us button at the top of the page.