December 2022 finds Ireland in quite a similar situation to last year’s festive season. The re-implementation of lockdown restrictions, due to the spread of the Covid19 Omicron variant, has left many Irish food service providers facing another less-than-ideal Christmas period. The easing of Covid guidelines in late October 2021 was somewhat predictably followed four weeks later by the return of the 12am curfew for bars and restaurants. While this does not present as much of an issue for many establishments that do not operate late bars, reduced capacity and social distancing guidelines are a growing concern for the Irish hospitality industry.

The timing couldn’t be worse for what is usually the busiest and most profitable month for the food service sector. To combat any potential downfall in revenue, it is vitally important to learn from last year’s mistakes, and to take the extra steps necessary to ensure a successful Christmas period. Below we’ll be discussing five suggestions that can help to make your bar or restaurant bulletproof against restrictions for the holiday season.

Stock Up on Takeaway Packaging

If the past year has thought us anything it’s that takeaway & delivery services can be an important lifeline for the hospitality industry throughout lockdown. Many restaurants that did not previously offer delivery services were forced to adopt a new strategy, and hastily attempted to order takeaway packaging from suppliers that were already running low on stock due to severely high demand. This highlighted the need for businesses to have a healthy supply of takeaway packaging essentials during a time of continuing uncertainty. The most obvious argument for keeping a reasonable stock of takeaway packaging is that it can all be neatly stacked and stored. These items also tend to remain durable and in great condition for a long period of time. But what are the takeaway packaging “essentials” in Ireland in 2022?

At a bare minimum, most restaurants should source some good quality compostable bio boxescupsstrawsnapkins & carrier bags. Bars on the other hand will always find a use for biodegradable clear pint glasses & cups. These items tend to be useful for pretty much any food serving situation. Thankfully, most takeaway packaging can be used for an incredibly wide range of dishes, and more importantly, most packaging is 100% compostable if kept free from heavy soiling. Some of the most commonly used takeaway packaging in Ireland includes compostable bio boxes, coffee cups, clear cups, soup cups, pizza/burger/noodle boxes, bowls, carrier bags, straws and napkins. Most of these products end up being used for many different applications than originally intended. For example, a salad bowl is often used to hold pasta dishes and desserts! If you’re looking for something more specific, hundreds of niche items can be found at conatycatering.com/takeaway-packaging

Increase hygiene/safety procedures and advertise it!

Have you made more of an effort than other bars and restaurants to make your premises safer for customers and staff? Great..tell people about it! Highlighting the extra measures that you’ve taken in order to make your business a covid-free zone is something that can really instil confidence in customers and provides further incentive for them to make a reservation. This is particularly true for groups that have older members of the public in them. A good idea would be to create a page on your website with pictures that clearly outline the procedures and hygiene equipment you have available. Further to this, mentioning these extra efforts on social media shows customers that health & safety is your number one priority this Christmas.

So how can you go the extra mile? One fantastic investment for businesses is to have a good quality hand sanitising station both inside and outside your front door. Let’s face it, not everyone is as diligent about washing their hands as the majority of us are. Nobody likes touching dirty door handles, so having a hand sanitising station on both sides of your door can really make a difference when trying to encourage customers to walk in. By now you will have surely installed a hand sanitising unit in your washrooms, if not, there’s many high quality and low cost options available, such as the Tork S4Conaty Hand Sanitising DispenserTork Foam Disp & Sensor (more can be found here). Keeping a box of face masks available at the door is also a thoughtful idea for any customers who may have misplaced their own mask.

Push your gift vouchers!

We’ve often found that bars & restaurants spend their money getting beautifully designed gift vouchers printed, only to under-utilise or avoid frequently advertising that they have them available. There really is no better time of the year to shift your thoughtfully designed gift cards. As most of us already know, coming up with gift ideas and getting them delivered on time can be a nightmare for those of us who have left it a bit too late. The trusty gift voucher tends to float to the top of the list as an easy present when all else fails...! Running dedicated ads for your gift cards at Christmas can be an incredibly effective strategy for picking up some of the lost revenue that may be incurred due to the on-going Covid crisis.

Even offering a further small incentive, such as 5 or 10% off the total cost of a meal when it’s purchased with a gift voucher, is another brilliant way to sweeten the deal and to get customers eager to buy a voucher. One of the most frequently touted advantages of pushing gift vouchers this time of year is that quite a lot of them never end up being used by the giftee anyway. We’ve all been guilty of this when having received various gift cards over the years, they either go missing or we just simply forget that we ever received them! If you haven’t already produced your own vouchers or cards, it’s fairly simple and cheap to do so these days. A quick googling of the topic will provide you with dozens of local printers and design templates. 

Email your Christmas Menu to customers

You many have already posted your Christmas menu on all of the relevant social media platforms, but have you sent out thoughtful and well-targeted emails containing your menu to your loyal customers? In this day and age of social media dominance, it’s extremely easy for your posts to be missed by a person scrolling through their newsfeeds. It’s essential to create another touchpoint for your customer, and Christmas email campaigns can provide the perfect opportunity for this. Another invaluable reason to send out your menu via email is due to the fact that many older customers may not use social media or may just be very infrequently active on it.

If you do plan on sending out your menu, it’s a good idea to really highlight the “stand out” dishes that you tend to know will be big winners to the majority of people. If you have any extra added benefits then be sure to highlight them (politely of course, no one likes a bragger!). Your price points may be lower, or maybe your table capacity may be larger than competitors. These are factors we all tend to consider, subconsciously or not, when making reservations around Christmas time. If you’re unsure as to whether you have an email database available, you may be able to contact a sales rep for the booking app that you use to request your customer email list. Contact details can usually be found on the booking apps website.

Send discounts to valuable customers

If you’ve been savvy enough to collect email addresses via a mailing or booking list, it’s a great idea to contact frequent high spending customers. Obviously, it is important to ensure that you have asked for permission to use their email address for any marketing information before mailing, so be certain to double check! Many booking apps and website plugins allow owners to search customer lists by amount spent, so it’s a good idea to check as to whether you currently have this information available to you.

While customer spending data can be useful, don’t be fooled into trying to focus too heavily on “one time only” customers who have splashed out. Your bread-and-butter customers will usually be more “valuable” in terms of reliability in the long run. Rewarding these type of customers lets them know that you appreciate their frequent business. This can go a long way in helping them to consider your bar or restaurant when planning Christmas meet ups with relatives, or even for reduced capacity work parties.

Final thoughts

If you’d like further details on how to freshen up your business this Christmas, Conaty Food & Catering Supplies have hospitality showrooms in Dublin and Meath that are fully stocked with all the latest trends in Ireland. For more information go to conatycatering.com/showrooms