Has anyone else seen a slow holiday season? We're up about 15% for the year, but December sales have not been as robust as expected (we're barely surpassing '16 sales which has not been the case in any other month). I've spoken with my suppliers, others in food industry (and other retail sectors), and it seems to be a trend in our area. Curious if others have seen the same.
We're off-premise catering but our kitchen allows for some limited retail space- pickup, no seating. We're brainstorming about winter sales ideas - we offer dinner takeouts one or two nights per week. Sales have been unpredictable (and the marketing/promotion is a LOT of time/effort for the money). I don't have historical data as we only started offering these last winter (sales were good until April), and this fall (been slow). I don't feel comfortable relying on sales returning to last year's levels so we're at the drawing board before the February/March slump settles in.
In the past we've offered lunch deliveries which we'll try again, and we're organizing special events with a few of our venues. Any ideas on things that have worked well for you?
We're off-premise catering but our kitchen allows for some limited retail space- pickup, no seating. We're brainstorming about winter sales ideas - we offer dinner takeouts one or two nights per week. Sales have been unpredictable (and the marketing/promotion is a LOT of time/effort for the money). I don't have historical data as we only started offering these last winter (sales were good until April), and this fall (been slow). I don't feel comfortable relying on sales returning to last year's levels so we're at the drawing board before the February/March slump settles in.
In the past we've offered lunch deliveries which we'll try again, and we're organizing special events with a few of our venues. Any ideas on things that have worked well for you?