For many, Halloween is one of the most widely anticipated events of the year. Whether it’s for decorating houses with pumpkins and ghostly decor or dining out and enjoying a spooky night at a bar or restaurant.
When it comes to Halloween, consumers spend more every year. In 2023, consumer spending in the United States reached an all-time high of $12.2 billion during the Halloween season.
Per person spending also reached an all-time high last year at $108.24, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF).
For restaurants, Halloween is an opportunity to create unique and memorable dining experiences for new and regular guests alike.
From Halloween-themed restaurant settings to limited-time food and dessert menus, there are many ideas to explore.
The secret is to start early. With only a month to go before the spooky season, we’ll show you how to prepare your restaurant and excite guests for Halloween.
Why consider a Halloween menu for your restaurant
Apart from setting up your venue with ghoulish decorations, the best way to increase your restaurant’s sales is with a Halloween-themed menu.
Boost revenues and sales
One of the top reasons to consider doing something ‘special’ for Halloween is to increase your sales and revenues. Whether it’s a seasonal menu or simply a Halloween setting, you can experiment one year and improve the next.
Attract new customers
Offering special foods or beverages can attract new guests to your venue. It’ll also entice regulars to come back and explore your Halloween-themed restaurant offerings.
Create excitement around your brand
When it comes to dining, guests may sometimes focus on their favorite dishes. But with special events like Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day, it’s an opportunity to create excitement around your brand.
Generate UGC for your restaurant
Halloween and other seasonal events are a great opportunity to improve your marketing with user-generated content (UGC), from new guests and regulars alike.
You can also give them more incentive by offering a 10% discount or simply asking them to tag you if they share their experience on social media.
Further reading: 21 Restaurant Marketing Ideas to Drive Guest Spending in 2024
Boost reservations for special events and menus
There are essentially two ways to run Halloween-themed restaurant events. One is to rely on walk-ins and special offerings via third-party platforms like Tripadvisor and Zomato. The other is to get guests to make reservations.
4 ideas for Halloween menus for your restaurant
Apart from your dine-in venue setting, it’s easier to give your menus a Halloween twist.
Halloween dessert menu
One of the top ways to offer guests something new is to add a Halloween flavor to your dessert menu. It’s easy to recreate some of your fan-favorite dishes with a Halloween twist.
Halloween beverage menu
Can’t do desserts? Or want to pair desserts with beverages? Create a few Halloween-themed beverages. According to research by LightspeedHQ bars saw a 15% boost in total sales along with a 26% rise in ‘total number of tickets’ on Halloween 2023.
Halloween appetizer menu
Your appetizer menu is another opportunity to create limited-time Halloween food items.
Halloween main course menu
This will require some pre-planning. But you can create a couple of Halloween-themed main course dishes.
6 tips to prepare for your restaurant for Halloween
Market early
The secret to a successful restaurant marketing campaign and any marketing efforts is to start marketing early.
The restaurant marketing campaign can include:
- Contents of the Halloween menu
- Where they will post the content
- Other platforms they will use, such as email, SMS, or WhatsApp
- If they’ll make special offers across third-party booking platforms like Zomato
- How they’ll attract new and recurring guests
- Platforms you can use to get online reservations, such as Reserve with Google and Facebook and Instagram
Create a digital menu
Skip the costs and time needed to create a print menu. Speed up your restaurant operations and marketing with a beautiful digital menu, featuring all your dishes and beverages.
Create Halloween visuals for marketing
Make sure you have a ready-list of marketing tools for your restaurant.
Give guests a sneak peek of what’s coming
Excite your guests ahead of time by creating mouth-watering visuals and giving them a sneak peek of what’s waiting for them when they dine in during Halloween.
Determine the length of your Halloween menu
Consider having your menu available for the full week leading up to Halloween.
Notify regular guests via your CRM
Use your restaurant CRM to segment guests and send an SMS or WhatsApp message to local numbers.
- Dine-in options
- Restaurant working hours
- Link to your menu (if available)
- Directions to your venue (via WhatsApp)
Use Servme for a memorable Halloween dining experience
Payments & event management
Secure a portion of your revenues in advance with restaurant event planning software and reservation fees.
Further reading: 5 Ways to Secure Advance Revenue with Restaurant deposits
The Servme widget
Servme’s reservation widget comes with many perks and features. From collecting online bookings to helping you build guest profiles in your CRM.
WhatsApp and SMS
Servme helps you communicate with guests faster with WhatsApp Business for Restaurants and SMS marketing features.
Further reading: The Complete Guide to SMS Marketing for Restaurants
Email marketing features
Use Servme’s email marketing features to share your upcoming Halloween menu, special events, and more.
Reservation, waitlist, and table management
Besides event management, Servme’s reservation system helps you manage online and offline reservations and waitlists.
Need to accommodate a large group? Servme’s automated table combinations feature lets you find the best tables to combine and seat guests in seconds.
Wrapping it up
Halloween is one of our favorite seasons at Servme! It’s fun, spooky, and restaurants can go wild with their ideas.
Every year many of our customers, including hotels, single-venue, and multi-location restaurants, celebrate Halloween in style!
Don’t let the pressure of wanting to do something special for Halloween put you off or extinguish your excitement. Create delightful dining experiences for your guests with ease.
