World wide, Restaurant Week attracts locals and guests, boosting the native financial system. Taking part provides eating places and bars an opportunity to show one-time diners into regulars. To make that occur, you must be seen when persons are researching the place to eat.
In line with The 2025 Sprout Social Index™, 41% of Gen Z flip to social media first when searching for data. Sprout’s Q2 2025 Pulse Survey additionally discovered that 35% of all customers use social first to search out native eating places and actions. Displaying up strategically on social media is the way you fill tables and stand out from the competitors throughout Restaurant Week.
This information will train you methods to construct a Restaurant Week advertising technique and what to do on social earlier than, throughout and after the occasion to benefit from it.
What’s Restaurant Week?
Restaurant Week is an occasion used to drive visitors to eating places and bars throughout slower intervals. Having originated within the US, the occasion is now a worldwide one.
To take part, you register with the native organizer and create fixed-price two or three-course menus for lunch and/or dinner. The organizer markets the occasion, generally spotlighting particular person venues, nevertheless it’s principally as much as members to advertise themselves.
Restaurant Week attracts locals and guests who could not usually dine at your restaurant, making it an excellent alternative to succeed in new company.
Why social media is essential for Restaurant Week
Greater than three-quarters (76%) of Q2 2025 Pulse Survey respondents mentioned social media has impacted their buying selections within the final six months. That affect makes social one of the crucial efficient instruments to spice up gross sales throughout Restaurant Week.
Social media is good for Restaurant Week advertising as a result of you’ll be able to take individuals from consciousness to reserving in a single place. Including reserving hyperlinks in your bio and posts turns your profile right into a reserving software. Past comfort, what convinces diners to behave is belief, and social is the place it’s constructed.
In line with our Q1 2024 Pulse Survey, 78% of customers say a model’s social media presence has a big affect on whether or not they belief that model, and for Gen Z it’s even larger at 88%. Is sensible—if somebody searches for what you are promoting and finds little about it, they could look elsewhere.
Whereas presence, tone and consistency construct belief, engagement builds neighborhood. Replying to feedback, reposting consumer content material and sharing updates earlier than, throughout and after the occasion reveals you’re as excited as your company.
That type of constant engagement turns Restaurant Week from a one-time occasion into the beginning of lasting loyalty.
Tips on how to create your Restaurant Week advertising plan
Preparation separates a very good Restaurant Week from a record-setting one. The eating places that see the most important payoff set clear objectives, know who they wish to attain and map out content material themes with a posting calendar. If doable, begin planning your menu and advertising 4 to 6 weeks forward so that you’re not scrambling when the occasion begins.
With an omnichannel technique that prioritizes social media, you’ll be able to attain extra diners, seize consideration and create a smoother expertise for company and employees.
Set clear targets and objectives
What do you wish to get out of Restaurant Week? Or what made you resolve it was value signing up? The solutions to these questions will form your advertising and social media objectives, which is able to information your technique.
Your objectives is likely to be to fill extra tables, increase consciousness, spark engagement, develop your following or construct neighborhood. It doesn’t matter what it’s, every goal must tie again to one thing measurable so your technique is working. For instance, in case your aim is model consciousness, you’d measure how many individuals noticed your content material by taking a look at publish attain, impressions or profile visits.
Clear objectives hold your marketing campaign centered and ensure your Restaurant Week efforts translate into actual outcomes.
Establish your audience for Restaurant Week
Restaurant Week typically brings in guests and locals who may not be a part of your typical buyer base. Take time to get to know who’s more likely to attend.
Ask the organizing physique if they’ve any information from previous years they will share, like demographic breakdowns or common group sizes. You may also overview what you are promoting’s social media analytics and browse final yr’s Restaurant Week hashtags to get an concept of who participated, the place they’re from and in the event that they appeared motivated by worth or by the expertise.
When you establish patterns, translate them into easy purchaser personas. For instance, meet The Weekend Vacationer: Jordan, 32, who’s on the town for a protracted weekend. They scroll Instagram and TikTok for “must-try” spots and e-book last-minute. Restaurant Week provides them a motive to attempt a brand new place as an alternative of sticking to their typical stops.
Utilizing personas helps you translate viewers insights into content material and messaging that’s extra more likely to resonate with diners.
To automate and dive deeper into your Restaurant Week market analysis, use a software like Sprout Social Listening to trace hashtags and key phrases for historic efficiency and viewers insights.
Create content material themes and calendar
Like making an attempt to constantly recreate a dish with no recipe, executing a social technique with no plan could be very troublesome. Content material pillars clear up this by supplying you with a couple of core themes to information what you publish. They hold your content material constant and strategic whereas nonetheless leaving room for creativity. This issues as a result of, based on The 2025 Sprout Social Index, content material originality is among the high methods a model can stand out, second solely to the standard of its service.
For Restaurant Week, doable pillars embody behind-the-scenes prep, spotlights on particular menu objects, buyer reactions or testimonials, sneak peeks and partnerships. From there, create activations (content material, promotions or campaigns) for every theme.
For instance, Chloe by Vincent shared a video of their chef making two Restaurant Week dishes to get individuals and excited.
When you’ve mapped your themes, plot them in a content material calendar and schedule posts forward of time. That means, whenever you’re busy serving company, your advertising remains to be working laborious within the background.
Affirm and coordinate your cross-channel advertising efforts
Ideally, social media is the hub of your Restaurant Week advertising, however each channel ought to level again to a central reservation system. Any time you do a coordinated push, ensure the calls to motion are constant and the messages are timed to land shut collectively.
As an example, you would possibly share user-generated pictures through the week on social, function the identical content material in your e-newsletter and highlight it on a digital display in your restaurant. The messaging all over the place says, “Reserve your spot now.”
When all of your advertising is driving the identical motion, has a cohesive appear and feel and is genuine to your model, it builds belief, which results in extra bookings.
Pre-Restaurant Week suggestions: The planning and hype part
Along with your advertising plan in hand, it’s time to get your back-of-house and front-of-house organized and begin constructing anticipation with diners.
Right here’s methods to set the stage so your Restaurant Week runs easily and delivers most affect.
Announce and construct anticipation
Knowledge from the 2025 Index reveals 90% of customers use social media to maintain up with what’s trending. Use this to your benefit by posting a teaser with the occasion dates, asserting your participation.
Dobson and Parnell introduced the occasion on Instagram, however they stored the main points easy so they may proceed to construct anticipation with extra content material because the occasion bought nearer.
You should definitely encourage enter and interplay in these posts. Asking questions or inviting individuals to tag their eating buddies boosts engagement and turns your replace right into a dialog.
Construct and showcase a particular menu
Create a Restaurant Week menu that helps you meet your objectives whereas additionally providing worth and novelty. Worth makes them really feel like they’re getting a deal value leaving house for, whereas the novelty provides them a contemporary expertise they will’t get some other week. You may also increase income by constructing in upsell alternatives equivalent to cocktail pairings or premium protein choices.
As soon as the menu is about, seize loads of pictures and movies of your Restaurant Week dishes so you’ll be able to present them off. In Unconventional Diner’s X (previously Twitter) publish under, the dish description attracts you in, however the high-quality picture sells it.
To additional construct anticipation, give e-mail subscribers or followers a sneak peek to make them really feel like insiders. You may also create visible tales round every dish to assist Restaurant Week company join along with your crew and really feel a part of the expertise.
Take a cue from NUE. They shared a mouthwatering behind-the-scenes video displaying how their Crispy Entire Fish is ready, highlighting the care that goes into the dish.
Pairing a powerful menu with promotion ensures your Restaurant Week affect lasts.
Collaborate and associate with influencers and companies
Supply free tastings to meals bloggers, influencers, media retailers and tourism bureaus to generate early critiques and content material. When manufacturers crew up with a trusted influencer, 64% of Sprout Pulse Survey respondents say they’re extra doubtless to purchase.
Komodo Dallas put this into motion by inviting Future Adams to preview its Restaurant Week menu, which she then shared together with her TikTok followers.
The aim right here is to develop your attain by enlisting trusted companions to assist drive new diners your means.
Open reservations early
Reservations are key throughout Restaurant Week as a result of they permit you to fill extra tables in fewer sittings. Contemplate opening your books sooner than typical to encourage bigger events to e-book early.
With two-thirds of restaurant reservations being made on-line, digital reserving is your greatest guess to safe tables upfront. When bookings go dwell, arrange a coordinated advertising push, like The eleventh Ground did within the Fb publish under, to unfold the phrase.
Practice your crew
Your employees is the face of your Restaurant Week expertise, so that you wish to put together them properly.
Use a fast coaching session to cowl key particulars like:
- Particular menu objects and upsell alternatives
- Tips on how to serve Restaurant Week diners and what to anticipate
- Any operational modifications, like adjusted hours or restricted seating occasions
Clear communication round procedures and repair expectations helps your crew ship constantly nice experiences throughout a busy week.
Throughout Restaurant Week suggestions: Actual-time engagement part
In line with the 2025 Index, advertising leaders rank general engagement as the highest metric for social media success, proving how necessary it’s to benefit from the surge in consideration. To do that, you’ll should be energetic on-line, interact with company in actual time and reply rapidly to suggestions. Let’s stroll by way of methods to do it.
Have interaction straight along with your viewers
Social media gives a chance to apply hospitality past your 4 partitions. Responding to company’ feedback and questions builds belief and relationships that last more than Restaurant Week.
Sprout’s 2025 Journey & Hospitality Content material Benchmarks Report reported that journey and hospitality manufacturers reply to solely 6% of every day messages and feedback. This can be a missed alternative, particularly since 73% of social customers say they’ll purchase from a competitor if a model doesn’t reply, based on the 2025 Index.
Designate somebody to watch and reply to feedback, and goal to reply the identical day if doable—like they do at Kafeneon Restaurant (as you’ll be able to see from the instance under).
Should you discover it troublesome to maintain up with questions and feedback throughout a number of networks, an answer like Social Buyer Care by Sprout Social may help you velocity up first response occasions and handle all of your conversations in a single place.
Leverage user-generated content material (UGC)
Consumer-generated content material is an genuine technique to attain extra individuals throughout Restaurant Week.
Desk indicators or refined prompts out of your employees encourage company to share their expertise and tag your account, like this Summerlicious (Toronto’s summer season Restaurant Week) diner did at Minami Toronto.
Recommend in addition they use your metropolis’s Restaurant Week hashtag; it’s a good way for diners to search out you and so that you can spot posts you would possibly in any other case miss. A restaurant-specific hashtag can work properly too, in case you have a widely known or multi-location restaurant that persons are already looking for.
Resharing visitor posts with credit score provides authenticity and reveals that diners are having fun with your restaurant in actual time.
Monitor conversations and sentiment
What are individuals saying about your restaurant or bar throughout Restaurant Week? How are they feeling about their eating expertise? Social listening provides you these solutions.
Monitoring appears to be like at particular person mentions or feedback, whereas listening analyzes all these conversations to search out patterns in how individuals focus on what you are promoting, menu and rivals.
Instruments like Sprout Listening enable you to establish tendencies in diner suggestions, observe sentiment in near-real-time and allow you to check efficiency towards rivals. Social listening allows you to catch patterns early, giving you a chance to leap on constructive momentum or alter rapidly earlier than small points turn into greater issues.
When company message you straight, Sprout’s Good Inbox brings all of your social messages collectively in a single place. This implies you’ll be able to reply rapidly to company who’re actively participating with you.
Submit-Restaurant Week suggestions: The follow-up part
After Restaurant Week is over, you may have a chance to maintain the thrill going, flip new company into regulars and accumulate insights to make your social media advertising even stronger.
Listed here are 3 ways to make that occur.
Thank diners and comply with up
Expressing gratitude and asking for suggestions on social is like placing a cherry on high of the Restaurant Week expertise.
A thank-you publish recognizing company and employees reinforces goodwill, whereas additionally displaying potential new diners that you just worth your neighborhood.
Social media additionally makes it straightforward to present and obtain suggestions. As an alternative of counting on Google critiques or surveys, put up a ballot or query field in your Instagram or Fb story asking company about their favourite dish or general expertise. These touchpoints strengthen relationships and provide you with insights to enhance your subsequent Restaurant Week.
Maintain the momentum going
Service typically slows proper after Restaurant Week, because the occasion sometimes falls throughout a quieter season. To maintain momentum, give diners a motive to return.
One possibility is to maneuver a preferred Restaurant Week dish onto your common menu and announce it on social, like Downtown by Chef Jay Pisculli did. You have already got pictures and movies of those dishes, making it a straightforward technique to repromote your restaurant on social.
You may also ship company house with a coupon for a reduction or a small perk (like a free dessert) in the event that they return inside a set timeframe.
With the suitable follow-up after Restaurant Week, you’ll flip buzz into repeat enterprise.
Analyze and study
As soon as Restaurant Week is finished, reviewing the outcomes of your advertising offers you perception into what labored and what didn’t so you’ll be able to enhance your technique subsequent yr.
Listed here are some key social metrics to trace throughout Restaurant Week:
- Engagement charges
- Attain
- Follower progress
- Reservations
- Clicks on reservation hyperlinks
- Quantity of user-generated content material (UGC)
Have a look at which posts or promotions earned essentially the most engagement, clicks or bookings and examine them with people who didn’t carry out as properly, so what content material to repeat and what to rethink.
With Sprout’s Tag Efficiency Report, you’ll be able to simply analyze your Restaurant Week social technique by tagging the posts and pulling a report that reveals what’s driving outcomes. For instance, you’ll be able to see your top-performing posts and observe metrics equivalent to engagements, clicks and video views.
By analyzing your advertising efforts, you’ll see which posts drove essentially the most bookings, which provides bought company within the door and the place there is likely to be room to enhance subsequent yr.
Elevate your Restaurant Week with social media
Restaurant Week is a good way to extend gross sales and attain new clients. However the true worth comes from utilizing social media to advertise your participation. With the suitable technique, you’ll be able to inform your restaurant’s story and create a loyal neighborhood that retains coming again.
Take a look at Sprout’s 2025 Journey & Hospitality Content material Benchmarks Report back to see what’s working throughout the business and take the guesswork out of your subsequent social media marketing campaign.
Often requested questions on Restaurant Week advertising
What are the simplest methods for eating places to advertise their enterprise throughout Restaurant Week to spice up buyer bookings?
Listed here are a couple of tried-and-tested methods to extend advance reservations throughout Restaurant Week:
- Be certain that your Google Enterprise profile and web site are correct and up-to-date.
- Create a particular menu that delivers worth for the diner.
- Construct pleasure early by way of multi-channel advertising, and be sure to have constant calls to motion.
- Spotlight your Restaurant Week menu and expertise on social media.
How do high eating places use social media advertising throughout Restaurant Week to face out and drive extra enterprise?
Eating places that efficiently use social media throughout Restaurant Week showcase particular dishes and employees by way of storytelling, reply to feedback and messages, and reshare user-generated content material. By participating promptly and mixing robust visuals with genuine voices on social, they fill tables and construct belief.
Which digital advertising instruments work greatest for Restaurant Week promotions to extend desk reservations?
On-line reserving platforms make it straightforward for company to order a desk, and social instruments assist get them there.
With Sprout Social, you’ll be able to schedule posts that spotlight your menu, observe engagement to see what drives clicks to your reservation hyperlink and reply rapidly to reserving inquiries. Pair this with a reservation system and an up to date Google Enterprise Profile to seize diners from curiosity to desk.
What are confirmed methods to create participating Restaurant Week menus and advertising supplies to extend participation and gross sales?
Create a particular menu for Restaurant Week that mixes favorites with unique dishes, and seize high-quality pictures and movies to indicate it off. Additionally invite native influencers to style the menu early to assist generate buzz and early critiques. Polished and constant advertising builds belief with diners and makes them extra doubtless to decide on your restaurant over others.
