Ways to Make the Dining Experience Extra Special
Going to a restaurant with family and friends is a favourite experience for many people, but with the economy as it is, there are far fewer people eating out impulsively or planning get-togethers as often.
Food presentation is an important detail—whether your restaurant serves economical offerings or more lavish ones.
In order to encourage customers to eat at your restaurant, consider the following:
- Train your greeters to welcome customers sincerely and enthusiastically. Even if they’re extremely busy, looking up, smiling, and mentioning that they’ll be right with the customer will go a long way. Customers don’t want to feel as if they’re being ignored.
- Attentive, personable wait staff can make all the difference. Even if they must cover several tables, a smile, a kind word, and accurately filling the customer’s order will increase the likelihood that the customer will return and recommend your restaurant to others.
- Asking whether customers are celebrating a special occasion—and being sensitive to the guest(s) of honour’s preferences—is a nice touch. Offering the choice between two free desserts for the individual(s) will set your establishment apart
- Food presentation is important to several of your customers—whether your restaurant serves economical offerings or more lavish ones.
- Creating at least one signature dish with a twist that your restaurant does extremely well make an impression on your customers, and the word will spread.
- If you serve a complementary appetizer, consider alternatives to a breadbasket.
- If you do serve a complementary bread product, consider adding a gluten friendly option to the menu. There is an increasing number of people who are cutting back on their gluten intake.
- Whether your restaurant is casual or more formal, cleanliness is important to your customers. And don’t forget to tend to your washrooms regularly.
- Do you still put salt and pepper on your tables? Replacing traditional dispensers with grinders that hold sea salt and others that hold peppercorns is just one special touch customers will notice.
These are only a few of the many things you can do to make your customers’ dining experience extra special.
Ask yourself what makes a dining experience stand out to you, and then, seek to provide that experience for your customers.
