How to nail Christmas 2024

Create a killer Christmas drinks list

Could 2024 be the year to retire dull festive staples like mulled wine? Christmas is big business in the drinks world with most customers happy to splash out if given the right opportunity. Lanchester Wines business unit controller Tom van der Neut says that the festive period is one of the easiest opportunities businesses will get to make profitable adjustments to their wine lists.

“The most important rule to remember is that customers can’t buy what you don’t stock,” he says. “By no means are we talking about tying up cash buying cases and cases of premium wine, but just a small stockholding and a place on the list will be enough to maximise these opportunities when they arise. Use data from your own sales to accurately predict what styles or regions might work best.”

Given the season’s celebratory nature, sparkling wine is a good place to start and is an easy upsell - try putting a glass of premium bubbles in a prominent place on the food menu as well as the drinks list.

Serving cocktails is a no-brainer in the run-up to Christmas. Strike a balance between the classics and more creative serves to keep everybody interested and ensure that the drinks are easy to make quickly in a busy service. And don’t neglect those wanting to drink more moderately or nothing at all. A well-tailored no and low offering can be extremely profitably, with non-alcoholic cocktails delivering especially high margins.

Market your menu in good time

Time is running out to market Christmas menus with most Christmas party bookers looking to get things locked in well before the clocks go back. A recent survey from bookings platform ResDiary found that the majority of venues start taking Christmas bookings before September. In addition, the survey found that those that planned well ahead were far less likely to have problems filling their tables.

OpenTable advises that restaurants ensure their website and online profile reflects everything they provide and doing a photo shoot that shows the venue fully set up for Christmas. The restaurants booking platform also say that people tend to pay more attention to their emails in the lead up to Christmas, so it pays to create well-crafted, personal emails over the period. “Share your latest news, whether it’s a festive menu offering, live music on specific nights, or to say Merry Christmas to one-time guests and regulars,” a spokesperson says. “They’ll appreciate the sentiment and may just decide it’s time to book a table at your restaurant.”  

Access recommends integrating POS systems with online booking platforms to get instant updates on availability and remove the risk of human error or cross-booking. “The last thing your already frazzled employees need is to have to explain to a disgruntled customer why there’s no table for them, when they’ve booked in advance,” a spokesperson says.

Promotion​

From festive cheer to full tables: How to maximise your Christmas profits ​

Christmas isn’t just about twinkling lights and festive cheer – for restaurants, it’s a prime opportunity to maximise revenue and build lasting customer relationships. But with competition heating up, how can you ensure your restaurant shines brighter than the rest?

Drawing on years of experience, Access Hospitality provides practical solutions and actionable advice designed to support you every step of the way in preparation for the festive rush.

Download the free guide today to: 

•Discover the hottest Christmas search trends for 2024 with exclusive insights from DesignMyNight.
•Learn how to create festive offers and promotions that stand out from the crowd.
•Get expert tips on managing large parties and turning seasonal visitors into loyal customers.
•Plan a profitable and delicious Christmas menu that caters to all dietary needs.
•Ensure your team and equipment are ready to handle the holiday rush.
•Get practical advice on managing annual leave, training your team, and maintaining high morale during the busy season.

Download your free copy today​ ​and make this Christmas your most successful yet.

Think outside the box

Meal kits helped a lot of restaurants get through the pandemic and created a new market for enterprising businesses, but demand has fallen away over the past few years. The exception to this is Christmas, with many restaurants still doing a brisk trade in meal kits over the festive period.

During Covid - when many people had time on their hands - kits were often complex affairs but simplicity is now the name of the game with most offerings designed to take the pressure off busy households. For example, Tommy Banks’ Made in Oldstead Christmas range is mostly made up of things that can simply be put in the oven including turkey Wellington with all the trimmings.

While there is a lot of competition - other chefs offering meal kits this year include Simon Rogan, Tom Kerridge and Michel Roux - boxing up food ready to be cooked at customer’s home has the potential to be a lucrative extra revenue stream for restaurants. Big name chefs tend to offer their meal kits nationally by way of a specialist courier service but smaller business with a loyal local following could consider facilitating delivery themselves or even requesting that customers come and pick up their boxes.

Hampers that feature a range of treats - perhaps some brought in and others made in house - are an even simpler way of adding another revenue stream.

Get to grips with staffing

Christmas is a notoriously difficult time for restaurants when it comes to staffing, with businesses having to manage one of the busiest periods in the year with what is also one of the most popular times for staff to want to take holiday. Planning ahead therefore is crucial, with some businesses needing to bring in seasonal staff, which can often create as many challenges as it offers solutions.

According to Access Hospitality, operators need to consider numerous factors for effective staff management during the festive period, including ensuring that agency staff are given thorough training prior to starting work, and have clear expectations about their responsibilities and what the job entails from the outset.

With increased staff numbers comes increased costs, and Access says that businesses must be on top of these costs in order to be a cost-effective as possible. This includes analysing hourly rates, overtime pay and bonuses to identify areas for potential savings, and making sure their scheduling system integrates with their reservations and EPos systems to ensure you have enough personnel to meet demand on any given day. It also suggests having precise time and attendance records to ensure wage bills are correct.

If you run a restaurant where the majority of your staff want to take time off over the Christmas period, you might also want to consider changing your annual leave timings. Data from Access Hospitality shows that holiday time for employees peaks in the final month of a holiday period, and so those businesses that run holiday from 1 January to 31 December will receive the most requests for holidays during the busiest month. Instead, it suggests restaurant stagger the holiday period so that it doesn’t align with the calendar year to help alleviate this.

Trust in turkey

Few meals are as emotive as the traditional Christmas lunch, and while it might be tempting to try and add a point of difference to your Christmas offer in order to stand out from the crowd operators should proceed with caution. While meat alternatives include beef, gammon, duck and goose, the majority of diners expect - and want - to see turkey grace the Christmas menu, so straying too far from serving traditional fare could but you on the bum.

While turkey is the crowning glory of any Christmas feast, it’s important to ensure that all the festive trimmings feature so as not to disappoint. According to market data company Statista, roast potatoes topped the list of preferred ingredients to have as part of a 2023 Christmas meal, with 73% choosing them, followed by gravy (66%), and then turkey in third spot (62%). Also scoring highly were stuffing (60%), pigs in blankets (60%), brussels sprouts (52%), and mince pies (47%). Alternative proteins featured lower down the list, with ham ranked 12 with only 24% choosing it as preference for their meal, and only 9% wanting fish.

Where restaurants do have licence to be more creative, however, is with their vegetarian and vegan options. While offering a feast for carnivores, Christmas menus can often fall short when it comes to catering for those who don’t eat animal products, with a nut roast just not cutting it. A good example of festive vegan option that more than stands up to its meat counterparts is the celeriac, chestnut, spinach and apple wellington on the festive menu at The Assembly House in Norwich, which is served with a wild mushroom and truffle ragout, roasted potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes, roasted carrot and parsnip, puy lentil and beetroot gravy

Even if your restaurant isn’t classically aligned with traditional Christmas fare it doesn’t mean you can’t get creative, with Pizza Express being a case in point. Alongside its traditional pizzas and pastas, its festive menu takes cues from the traditional UK Christmas lunch and include dough balls in blankets - dough balls wrapped in pancetta with sage and Gran Milano cheese - and a pizza topped with pulled turkey, sage, cheese and cranberry sauce.