Tis the Season

Winning Guests’ Hearts, Minds, and Patronage During the Holiday Season

We greeted 2024, not with champagne and noisemakers, but with coffee, eggs, and waffles. My wife, two of our friends, and I wished each other a happy new year seated in a Waffle House booth. And our foursome was not a random outlier of New Year’s Eve celebrants. A number of other folks, younger and older, seemed to have decided that a midnight breakfast was a fine way to start the year. The restaurant was adequately staffed. Their hospitality was warm and even festive. I suppose Hemingway might have described it as a “clean, well-lighted place.”

Granted, our late-night sojourn to Waffle House was impulsive. As far as we knew, Waffle House had not promoted the concept as a New Year's Eve destination. That said, the experience invited a discussion on how any restaurant might profit from the “Holiday Season” – that period from November to January when we celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, and the New Year.

Traditionally, the restaurant “Holiday Season” is February through June, which encompasses Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, and Mother’s Day, not to mention spring proms and graduations. Many independent operators aggressively plan and promote to capture a share of this market.

Keep Learning, Keep Growing…

You might have noted there is far less promotional buzz during the final quarter of the year. Yet, in a 2022 consumer survey, the National Restaurant Association found that 77% of consumers “will cope with holiday demands by letting restaurants do some of their cooking during the coming weeks.”