World wide, Restaurant Week attracts locals and guests, boosting the native economic system. Taking part provides eating places and bars an opportunity to show one-time diners into regulars. To make that occur, it’s important to be seen when individuals are researching the place to eat.
In accordance with The 2025 Sprout Social Index™, 41% of Gen Z flip to social media first when in search of 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. Exhibiting 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 construct a Restaurant Week advertising and marketing technique and what to do on social earlier than, throughout and after the occasion to take advantage of it.
What’s Restaurant Week?
Restaurant Week is an occasion used to drive visitors to eating places and bars throughout slower durations. 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, however it’s principally as much as individuals to advertise themselves.
Restaurant Week attracts locals and guests who might not usually dine at your restaurant, making it an excellent alternative to achieve new company.
Why social media is essential for Restaurant Week
Greater than three-quarters (76%) of Q2 2025 Pulse Survey respondents stated 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 and marketing as a result of you possibly can 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 accordance with our Q1 2024 Pulse Survey, 78% of customers say a model’s social media presence has a big impression on whether or not they belief that model, and for Gen Z it’s even greater at 88%. Is smart—if somebody searches for your enterprise and finds little about it, they could look elsewhere.
Whereas presence, tone and consistency construct belief, engagement builds group. Replying to feedback, reposting person content material and sharing updates earlier than, throughout and after the occasion exhibits you’re as excited as your company.
That form 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 and marketing plan
Preparation separates Restaurant Week from a record-setting one. The eating places that see the largest payoff set clear targets, know who they wish to attain and map out content material themes with a posting calendar. If potential, begin planning your menu and advertising and marketing 4 to 6 weeks forward so that you’re not scrambling when the occasion begins.
With an omnichannel technique that prioritizes social media, you possibly can attain extra diners, seize consideration and create a smoother expertise for company and employees.
Set clear targets and targets
What do you wish to get out of Restaurant Week? Or what made you determine it was value signing up? The solutions to these questions will form your advertising and marketing and social media targets, which can information your technique.
Your targets could be to fill extra tables, enhance consciousness, spark engagement, develop your following or construct group. It doesn’t matter what it’s, every goal must tie again to one thing measurable so you already know your technique is working. For instance, in case your objective is model consciousness, you’d measure how many individuals noticed your content material by put up attain, impressions or profile visits.
Clear targets preserve your marketing campaign centered and ensure your Restaurant Week efforts translate into actual outcomes.
Establish your target market for Restaurant Week
Restaurant Week typically brings in guests and locals who won’t be a part of your common buyer base. Take time to get to know who’s prone to attend.
Ask the organizing physique if they’ve any information from previous years they’ll share, like demographic breakdowns or common group sizes. You can even evaluate your enterprise’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 guide last-minute. Restaurant Week provides them a cause to strive a brand new place as an alternative of sticking to their common stops.
Utilizing personas helps you translate viewers insights into content material and messaging that’s extra prone 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 may be very tough. Content material pillars remedy this by supplying you with a number of core themes to information what you put up. They preserve your content material constant and strategic whereas nonetheless leaving room for creativity. This issues as a result of, in response to The 2025 Sprout Social Index, content material originality is likely one of the prime methods a model can stand out, second solely to the standard of its service.
For Restaurant Week, potential 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 method, if you’re busy serving company, your advertising and marketing remains to be working exhausting within the background.
Verify and coordinate your cross-channel advertising and marketing efforts
Ideally, social media is the hub of your Restaurant Week advertising and marketing, however each channel ought to level again to a central reservation system. Any time you do a coordinated push, be sure that the calls to motion are constant and the messages are timed to land shut collectively.
As an illustration, you may share user-generated images throughout the week on social, function the identical content material in your e-newsletter and highlight it on a digital display screen in your restaurant. The messaging in all places says, “Reserve your spot now.”
When all of your advertising and marketing is driving the identical motion, has a cohesive appear and feel and is genuine to your model, it builds belief, which ends up in extra bookings.
Pre-Restaurant Week ideas: The planning and hype part
Together with your advertising and marketing 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 set the stage so your Restaurant Week runs easily and delivers most impression.
Announce and construct anticipation
Information from the 2025 Index exhibits 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 might proceed to construct anticipation with extra content material because the occasion received nearer.
You’ll want to 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 targets 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 recent expertise they’ll’t get some other week. You can even enhance income by constructing in upsell alternatives similar to cocktail pairings or premium protein choices.
As soon as the menu is ready, seize loads of images and movies of your Restaurant Week dishes so you possibly can present them off. In Unconventional Diner’s X (previously Twitter) put up beneath, the dish description attracts you in, however the high-quality picture sells it.
To additional construct anticipation, give electronic mail subscribers or followers a sneak peek to make them really feel like insiders. You can even create visible tales round every dish to assist Restaurant Week company join along with your workforce and really feel a part of the expertise.
Take a cue from NUE. They shared a mouthwatering behind-the-scenes video exhibiting how their Crispy Complete Fish is ready, highlighting the care that goes into the dish.
Pairing a powerful menu with promotion ensures your Restaurant Week impression lasts.
Collaborate and companion with influencers and companies
Provide free tastings to meals bloggers, influencers, media shops and tourism bureaus to generate early opinions and content material. When manufacturers workforce 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 objective right here is to increase your attain by enlisting trusted companions to assist drive new diners your method.
Open reservations early
Reservations are key throughout Restaurant Week as a result of they allow you to fill extra tables in fewer sittings. Think about opening your books sooner than common to encourage bigger events to guide early.
With two-thirds of restaurant reservations being made on-line, digital reserving is your finest guess to safe tables prematurely. When bookings go stay, manage a coordinated advertising and marketing push, like The eleventh Ground did within the Fb put up beneath, to unfold the phrase.
Prepare your workforce
Your employees is the face of your Restaurant Week expertise, so that you wish to put together them nicely.
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 instances
Clear communication round procedures and repair expectations helps your workforce ship constantly nice experiences throughout a busy week.
Throughout Restaurant Week ideas: Actual-time engagement part
In accordance with the 2025 Index, advertising and marketing leaders rank general engagement as the highest metric for social media success, proving how vital it’s to take advantage of the surge in consideration. To do that, you’ll must be energetic on-line, have interaction with company in actual time and reply shortly to suggestions. Let’s stroll by way of do it.
Have interaction immediately along with your viewers
Social media gives a chance to follow 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 each day messages and feedback. It is a missed alternative, particularly since 73% of social customers say they’ll purchase from a competitor if a model doesn’t reply, in response to the 2025 Index.
Designate somebody to watch and reply to feedback, and purpose to reply the identical day if potential—like they do at Kafeneon Restaurant (as you possibly can see from the instance beneath).
If you happen to discover it tough to maintain up with questions and feedback throughout a number of networks, an answer like Social Buyer Care by Sprout Social may also help you velocity up first response instances and handle all of your conversations in a single place.
Leverage user-generated content material (UGC)
Person-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 time Restaurant Week) diner did at Minami Toronto.
Recommend additionally they use your metropolis’s Restaurant Week hashtag; it’s an effective way for diners to search out you and so that you can spot posts you may in any other case miss. A restaurant-specific hashtag can work nicely too, you probably have a well known or multi-location restaurant that individuals are already trying to find.
Resharing visitor posts with credit score provides authenticity and exhibits 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 at particular person mentions or feedback, whereas listening analyzes all these conversations to search out patterns in how individuals talk about your enterprise, menu and opponents.
Instruments like Sprout Listening show you how to establish developments in diner suggestions, monitor sentiment in near-real-time and allow you to match efficiency in opposition to opponents. Social listening allows you to catch patterns early, giving you a chance to leap on constructive momentum or modify shortly earlier than small points turn out to be larger issues.
When company message you immediately, Sprout’s Sensible Inbox brings all of your social messages collectively in a single place. This implies you possibly can reply shortly to company who’re actively participating with you.
Put up-Restaurant Week ideas: The follow-up part
After Restaurant Week is over, you may have a chance to maintain the joy going, flip new company into regulars and accumulate insights to make your social media advertising and marketing 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 prime of the Restaurant Week expertise.
A thank-you put up recognizing company and employees reinforces goodwill, whereas additionally exhibiting potential new diners that you just worth your group.
Social media additionally makes it simple to provide and obtain suggestions. As a substitute of counting on Google opinions 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 offer you 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 cause to return.
One choice 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 images and movies of those dishes, making it a simple technique to repromote your restaurant on social.
You can even 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 best follow-up after Restaurant Week, you’ll flip buzz into repeat enterprise.
Analyze and study
As soon as Restaurant Week is completed, reviewing the outcomes of your advertising and marketing will provide you with perception into what labored and what didn’t so you possibly can enhance your technique subsequent yr.
Listed here are some key social metrics to trace throughout Restaurant Week:
- Engagement charges
- Attain
- Follower development
- Reservations
- Clicks on reservation hyperlinks
- Quantity of user-generated content material (UGC)
Take a look at which posts or promotions earned essentially the most engagement, clicks or bookings and examine them with those who didn’t carry out as nicely, so you already know what content material to repeat and what to rethink.
With Sprout’s Tag Efficiency Report, you possibly can simply analyze your Restaurant Week social technique by tagging the posts and pulling a report that exhibits what’s driving outcomes. For instance, you possibly can see your top-performing posts and monitor metrics similar to engagements, clicks and video views.
By analyzing your advertising and marketing efforts, you’ll see which posts drove essentially the most bookings, which gives received company within the door and the place there could be room to enhance subsequent yr.
Elevate your Restaurant Week with social media
Restaurant Week is an effective way to extend gross sales and attain new clients. However the true worth comes from utilizing social media to advertise your participation. With the best technique, you possibly can inform your restaurant’s story and create a loyal group that retains coming again.
Try Sprout’s 2025 Journey & Hospitality Content material Benchmarks Report back to see what’s working throughout the trade and take the guesswork out of your subsequent social media marketing campaign.
Regularly requested questions on Restaurant Week advertising and marketing
What are the simplest methods for eating places to advertise their enterprise throughout Restaurant Week to spice up buyer bookings?
Listed here are a number of tried-and-tested methods to extend advance reservations throughout Restaurant Week:
- Make sure 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 marketing, and be sure to have constant calls to motion.
- Spotlight your Restaurant Week menu and expertise on social media.
How do prime eating places use social media advertising and marketing 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 and marketing instruments work finest for Restaurant Week promotions to extend desk reservations?
On-line reserving platforms make it simple for company to order a desk, and social instruments assist get them there.
With Sprout Social, you possibly can schedule posts that spotlight your menu, monitor engagement to see what drives clicks to your reservation hyperlink and reply shortly 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 and marketing supplies to extend participation and gross sales?
Create a particular menu for Restaurant Week that mixes favorites with unique dishes, and seize high-quality images and movies to indicate it off. Additionally invite native influencers to style the menu early to assist generate buzz and early opinions. Polished and constant advertising and marketing builds belief with diners and makes them extra doubtless to decide on your restaurant over others.
