Help me promote an upscale Northern Italian restaurant, Please!?

Question

Lovely ambience, top of the line food and stellar service. I've been doing this for 20 + years, but need fresh ideas to promote and stimulate business. If you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them. Thank you!

Answer 1

Some upscale restaurants do well with setting up one or two signature dishes for tableside preparation, if that is allowed in your jurisdiction (some food service jurisdictions prohibit tableside food preparation, out of concern for contamination control). In other places, the floor plan doesn't really permit it, or the staff requirements are too great. But where it can be done, it brings a bit of "show" to the dining room, and is popular with diners. Doing Caesar salads for two at tableside is a classic example, and still a popular offering at places which do it.

Another idea is to be aware of sound control in your dining room. You say you have lovely ambience, and well you may. But if it is hard for your diners to have conversations in your restaurant, they won't return for celebrations of other life events, or feel good about making word of mouth recommendations. They won't stay for coffee, desserts or additional drinks, which generate additional profit. They won't want to book for business meetings and parties.

But a restaurant shouldn't sound like a library, either. A room that is too quiet doesn't encourage laughter or conversation, and makes people feel that anything they might say is easily overheard. To counteract this, some restaurants even put in an adaptive sound system that generates a little white noise in off hours when there are few patrons, and cuts that down automatically, as the room fills with diners. The idea is to have a comfortable "burble" of noise that is easy to talk over, but that gives people a feeling that their conversations are reasonably private, too, and that they are enjoying a meal in a busy, popular place.

So, sit in your dining room at a good table, during a busy hour, and talk to someone over the table, and see how it sounds. If you have private rooms, check them for sound isolation from the main room and kitchen. Putting a little money into effective sound insulation, noise masking, or even active sound control systems can really return profits quickly. You may need to get an architectural firm, or an acoustic consultant involved. Don't try to "fix" any problem you sense with inexpensive "background" music systems, however, as they can drive patrons away, rather than back to you, again and again.

Finally, although it is overdone in these days of celebrity chefs, getting the chef out front once or twice a night can be worthwhile. Give him a little "stage business" to do while he's out front, like directing waiters to bring samples of the new grappa, or mentioning the new seasonal menu he's going to debut next month.

Answer 2

How about something like "Just like at George Clooney's Italian Villa"  He has a home in northern Italy where he often has Hollywood parties.

I guess you might have to be careful about using his name...so maybe you could do something like "Experience why Hollywood stars fly all the way too Lake Como right here in (your town)"

Since many people think of Italian food as romantic, try an ad campaign appealing to people who've been married for a while with an idea like "After years of togetherness, Restaurant Name will make you feel like you're on your first date again"