Dining out at restaurants is a popular activity for many Canadians all throughout the year. During the summer, however, opening your restaurant’s patio is a great way to attract customers. Just as popular a pastime as patio dining is ordering takeout.
You could argue that the summertime encourages more takeout orders than normal as the wonderful weather makes people want to be outside more often. If they’d prefer to dine anywhere other than your eatery, it doesn’t mean your restaurant can’t provide the food. What can you do to prefect the takeout experience at your restaurant?
Offer freebies to your customers.
This summer will be one when one-upping the competition is an incredibly important task of yours. With takeout being the only option at a lot of restaurants, it’s wise to do a little something extra for everyone who chooses to order food from your establishment. Pop a nice freebie into your patrons’ bags in order to score points with them, suggests McCain Foodservice Trends on DennisExpress.com.
“Perhaps a cupcake on the house or a bonus onion ring, stuffed jalapeño or some potato tots with the French fries,” they suggest on the site, “It’s worth noting that packaging advances are enabling popular appetizers and bar bites like those to arrive at the customer’s door hotter and crisper.”
Create a specific takeout menu.
As you’re undoubtedly aware, some of your dishes just aren’t made to be placed in a box or a bag. So how does your takeout menu differ from your dine-in menu? Make the answer to this question very easy to locate. Utilize both your website and your social media accounts to present your restaurant’s takeout menu to the public. As well, be sure to offer both an online and over-the-phone method for ordering meals.
“The vast majority of connected-consumers make decisions about dining and takeout from information (and photos) viewed on their phones,” alerts Mike Mirarchi in a separate DennisExpress.com article, “Making your takeout menu available in a PDF format is also a nice touch, and convenient for workplace printing. Avoid relying on ‘pictures’ or Jpeg images of your menu as these are not always mobile-friendly, print poorly and add little value to web searches. Online only specials, and combo deals in print, are a great addition to takeout menus and effective at increasing order size.”
Promote a “meal for later” special.
Ease the burden had by the cooks of your household. While promoting your takeout menu, suggest that your patrons order a “meal for later”. In other words, create meal packages that include two or more dishes that enable people to buy lunch and dinner in one shot at a discounted rate.
“A Datassential report found 48 percent of consumers (were) interested in ordering extra entrées for later; 44 percent were interested in ordering frozen items for later,” McCain Foodservice Trends reveals.
Make the payment process super easy.
At Divvia, we offer a wide variety of top-of-the-line payment terminals to help your restaurant easily process credit card and debit card transactions. To learn all about them, please don’t hesitate to call us at 1-877-748-2884 or send us a message on our Contact Us page!
