Weekdays suck; what can we do to make them busier?

I need to increase my lunch sales?

These are common questions, and there is no magical answer. There are many factors in the peaks and valleys of your restaurant.

The more important thing to ask yourself first is, are your peak times full? If you can answer yes, we are on a waitlist all the time, or we continually turn away reservations, then start thinking about those non-peak days and hours.

However, if the answer is no, think about what you can do to maximize the peak hours.

Here are the facts about marketing peak times vs marketing non-peak times.

Peak times, you have a full staff on so extra guests won't increase labour.

Non-peak times, if you get too busy, you might not be prepared and give a bad experience, or you may be over-prepared in anticipation your marketing is going to work and blow your labour budget.

Peak times create anticipation; if you are booked on a Friday night weeks in advance, you will naturally have spillover to non-peak times.

Peak times mean more diners are going out.

Let's do some math. If there are 10,000 potential diners on a Friday night and your marketing brings in 1% of them, that's 100 people.

Non-peak times, like Monday at 3pm, there may only be 50 potential diners. The same marketing effort and cost brings in 1% of them, that's only 5 diners.

Which has the better ROI?

No matter which way you look at it, work on increasing your peak times, your bank account will thank you!