How To Host A Successful Soft Opening For Your Restaurant
Your restaurant is fully furnished and accessorized, the kitchen is stocked with inventory, and your staff is hired and trained for the official launch. You’ve even got the food and concept nailed down to “T,” but there’s one last thing to consider before you open your doors to the public—a series of soft openings.
A soft opening is a limited, invite-only—and often complimentary for guests—opportunity to introduce your new restaurant to friends, family, colleagues, and other strategic partners and influencers.
Why host a soft opening for your restaurant? There are a number of reasons. Number one, it provides an opportunity to work out any kinks with staffing or procedure, and also gives your kitchen the chance to manage a large number of orders before paying customers arrive.
Number two: Soft openings create important pre-opening buzz and hype for your restaurant. And, finally, they can build future revenue if you hand out coupons or deals that are good for a later date.
Now let’s talk about how to host a successful soft opening.
Create A Limited Menu
Opting for a limited menu during your soft opening is a good way to create a manageable breakfast, lunch or dinner service while still giving the kitchen staff an opportunity to master the more complex dishes.
Consider offering a select number of appetizers, entrees, drinks and dessert from your menu. This minimizes the mental legwork on your guest’s part and allows you to test dishes so you can make minor adjustments before grand opening. You could even spotlight a signature dish to help you stand out from the crowd. Regardless of what you choose, a limited menu acts as a great teaser to encourage guests to come back and try something new the next time.
Invite A Limited Number of Guests
An intimate guest list provides for a controlled environment, which gives your staff the opportunity to fine-tune food, service and operations. Be selective about the people who receive invites. You want customers lined up outside your doors on grand opening day and, to help achieve this, you’ll need people to attend the soft opening who are willing and equipped to generate buzz leading up to the date.
So, your guest list should include familiar faces as well as influencers. Familiar faces—like friends and family—are likely to offer the constructive criticism that you need in order to improve. They’re also more forgiving of the hiccups that come with a soft opening.
When we talk about influencers, we’re talking about two types of people. First, there are local and regional social media influencers. Both should be invited to your soft opening because a single shared image or tweet could bring a flood of awareness and following to your brand.
Second, there are the figures in your community that are well connected—like local politicians and even school principals—whose word-of-mouth recommendation could prove very valuable for business.
Have A Plan For Gathering Feedback
It’s important to solicit feedback before officially opening your doors to the general public. A soft opening allows you to gauge the customer’s response to your service, food and operations.
To solicit feedback, you could simply sit back and observe the activity. How is the flow for staff and guests? How are people navigating the space? What facial expressions are you seeing in reaction to food and service?
For more detailed responses, give your guests a feedback form at the end of the meal and ask very specific questions, rather than a generic comment card with just “good, okay and bad” ratings.
For example, you could ask: How was the volume of the music? What dish did you enjoy the most and why? Ask guests to describe the table service and what you can do to improve the experience. Collect the information in writing to easily track feedback and share it with your team.
Offer A Worthwhile Deal
People love free things. They also love feeling special. Offer your soft opening guests a deal that only they can receive at a future visit.
This could be coupon for a free appetizer, credit toward their next meal, or a BOGO special that encourages them to bring a guest and offer more exposure to your new restaurant.
You could also distribute branded swag, like a pop-socket or coffee mug, that they can use daily and that will remind them often of your business. Swag also doubles as advertising to the general public!
Host Multiple Events
Sure, it takes more work but hosting more than one soft opening has many advantages. In fact, we recommend our restaurant clients consider hosting three soft opening events. Doing so allows you to cater to a large number of guests without all of the overwhelm in a single day.
It also helps generate even more buzz by stretching the days leading up to the grand opening. You could even divvy up the days to particular crowds. Reserve one day for friends and family, one day for publicists and other media outlets, and the final day for influencers.
You’ll have more opportunity to work out any issues and you can make small improvements each day.
Get Social…On Social Media
One of the main ways that people find new dining experiences today is online—more specifically, social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
For your soft opening, you should have a social media-savvy plan in place that includes 1) A photogenic background that guests will want to pose in front of and 2) An incentive to share their experience with followers.
You could even arrange for a professional photographer to take pictures at the event. These professional images can then be shared with your guests at a later date to give them the opportunity to continue to spread the buzz on your restaurant opening.
The extra advantage is that you’ll collect their email addresses for future marketing and promotions. And, you’ll have plenty of high-quality content to share on your restaurant’s own social media channels.
Before we wrap-up, here’s one bonus tip: Remember to test all of your technology during your soft opening events. Although soft openings are generally free, you should still print a receipt so that your guests are aware of the value of the food that you just gifted them. This also helps to confirm that your point of sale, card payment systems and printers are working properly.
The advantages of hosting a soft opening far outweigh the costs involved. Your soft opening is a chance to fine-tune restaurant operations and create evangelists for your business. It’s a method you can use wisely to set yourself up for long-term success!