Launching your New Restaurant

Launching your restaurant is a very exciting time – the culmination of lots of hard work and probably rather a lot of money.

Don’t waste this important time – launching your business is a great opportunity for excellent marketing and sales, not to mention raising the profile of your restaurant.

If you are launching your restaurant in a relatively small local area, don’t under estimate the buzz a new restaurant can create. Many people will know that you are about to open and will be watching your premises excitedly – why not harness that interest rather than be annoyed that people are pressing their noses up against the window!?

Get People Involved

You can use your local media to help launch your restaurant. Call up your local newspaper and let them know that you are launching a new restaurant. Tell them the details of your launch party or your opening night and invite them to come along.

It is worth contacting your local radio station and TV channels, too – if you don’t ask you don’t get! These people are looking for stories too, so if you make yours exciting, why wouldn’t they want to feature you?

When your chef is testing recipes and you are planning the menu, you could see who is nearby and offer them free samples. You would be amazed at how something for nothing gets people excited!!

Using Exciting Marketing

You may think that the internet and mobile phones have taken over any kind of traditional marketing. This is not really the case, although you would be smart to use every possible advantage available. You could think about having some flyers printed up that shout about your new place – make sure there is something in it for the public, maybe a free glass of wine on opening night, or a two for one on main meals.

There is such a wide range of communication tools available that it is really only your imagination that is holding you back. If you have the confidence, you can stand outside your restaurant on launch day with a megaphone, telling the public all about your great new restaurant!

If that is a little too out there for you, how about simply offering the first thirty people a free starter? You need to be prepared to spend a little for a successful launch. Don’t go thinking that people will just happily come in and pay full price in a new restaurant – they may do, but they may also go to the other restaurant they already know down the road.

Ask For Feedback

A great way to get people involved in the launch of your restaurant is to ask for their opinion – people love giving it and they will feel part of it. Write a letter to the local paper asking people what they think. Give out free samples of what will be your signature dish and get people to tell you what they like and don’t like about it.

It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as you get people talking about your new restaurant!