Valentine's Day: 12 ideas to boost your restaurant's sales

62% of French people celebrate Valentine's Day in a restaurant, and 35% of these will have an average bill of between 50 and 100E.A corny holiday, or too commercial? Maybe, but we love celebrating it all the same!

Valentine's Day: a day of the year when couples want to indulge themselves, are looking for an experience, and pay less attention to price. It's an opportunity to increase your revenues, provided you meet customers' expectations. And to let them know how your restaurant embodies the place they're looking for to celebrate Valentine's Day. How can you do this? Through impactful, strategic communication. Here are some tips on how to make your restaurant attractive on February 14 and promote your offers online.

Offer a special Valentine's menu in your restaurant

1. A festive menu?

It's the perfect opportunity to offer a festive menu! On this day, couples place less importance on the price, and more on the experience they're going to have together. Setting up a tasting menu at a fixed price allows you to anticipate quantities and boost margins. Why not offer a blind menu for a real sense of indulgence? Best Practice: Bertrand Group establishments(Flora Danica, L'Ile, Auteuil Brasserie...) offered a special Valentine's Day menu in 2022 in every restaurant. To attract customers with it, the restaurants are highlighting it on their websites, through a tab dedicated to this menu, but also via social media, with posts published from February 2.

Best Practice: To communicate its special menu, the gourmet restaurant 39V went 100% all out. When Internet users click on the 39V website, a popup with a heart appears. Clicking on it redirects to the menu directly...

2. An attractive menu?

If you want to attract Valentine's Day devotees to your restaurant, you're largely targeting couples. So seduce them. Use words of tenderness to make a statement and get into the Valentine's theme. Or opt for a menu of seductive ingredients, with the craziest food and cocktail pairings...Best Practice: The restaurant Il Vaporetto presented its menu in an original way, with formulations such as "Sensual Taglioni blossoming with scallops", "seductive play between sea bass fillet and naughty sweet potato mousseline"... A way to stand out and attract lovers!

Credits @ilyafoodstories

Best Practice: Last year's menu at Liquide, the restaurant of Top Chef candidate Mathias Marc, was all about love, with dishes paired with Grey Goose cocktails. The menu is sure to appeal to couples, with the use of ingredients such as yuzu, chocolate and oysters. Usually closed on Mondays, Liquide has announced its exceptional opening on February 14, 2022, on its website and booking sites such as La Fourchette. A popup is also displayed on the restaurant's website to redirect customers directly to this exceptional offer!

3. A special Valentine's Day creation in your restaurant?

You're not a gastronomic or bistronomic restaurant? No need to create a tasting menu that doesn't match your identity! You can simply offer an ephemeral Valentine's Day creation in your restaurant. Decline your specialty in the colors of this holiday, or add a unique product or cocktail to the menu. Best Practice: Big Mamma restaurantshave created a candy-pink version of their famous lemon meringue pie! 12 cm of love... which they posted on their Instagram pages to publicize this short-lived offer. With over 3k likes on each of the posts, the pink tart succeeded in making a name for itself!

Best Practice: The king of the folded pizza concept, Magnà, unfolded its pizzas for the occasion last year! The aim was to give it a beautiful heart shape, typical of Valentine's Day. Magnà had these "love pizzas" photographed to create quality content to share on Instagram before the big day.

Partner with another relevant player

4. Goodies for added value?

Flowers, chocolates or perfumes: typical Lovers' Day products to embellish your Food & Beverage offer. But you can also vary your offer by offering something original. Use your imagination! To do this, you need to partner with a brand. A collaboration not only creates value to differentiate your offer, but also enables you to reach a wider audience! Best Practice: In his takeaway menu, Juan Arbalez teamed up with the Confiture Parisienne brand to include a jar of "Kinky Chocolate". Chef Céline Pham completed her menu with a small bouquet in a vase from florist Désirée. Other restaurants offered food and drink pairings in collaboration with alcohol brands, such as Liquide and GreyGoose, or Sebastien Gaudard and Le Barteleur. These collaborations allow the 2 partners to combine their talents and their community for greater success. What's more, Instagram lets you co-create a post and publish it directly on the 2 pages! Find out more about this feature here!

5. A 4-handed dinner? Joining forces with another restaurant or chef is the perfect way to make your Valentine's Day dinner a success. Bringing several chefs together creates an explosion of flavors and creativity between two worlds , and sets the tone for Valentine's Day. An operation that also creates a sense of exclusivity and urgency. Best Practice: A 12-hand (!!) menu was created 2 years ago by 6 chefs, including Emily Chia and Amandine Sepulcre. But also the unprecedented collaboration between the chef couple Sayaga and Gil with the We Are Ona collective to create a special Valentine's Day gourmet basket has generated a lot of interest. The basket was promoted to Instagram users at the beginning of February.

6. An experience beyond the culinary?

Make the experience even more complete by partnering with a wellness center or spa near your establishment. Massages or treatments attract lovers. They can escape for a moment, indulge themselves, enjoy a relaxing experience followed by gastronomy. A package that gives guests the feeling of being pampered.

Creating the right atmosphere

7. The perfect atmosphere for Valentine's Day?

Put it in the spotlight! If your restaurant has a warm, romantic atmosphere, you're way ahead of the game! All you have to do is emphasize it in your communications. Best Practice: Restaurant Francette boasts a breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower. There's nothing more romantic than the glittering monument! So, photos and videos shared on Instagram right now prove decisive in attracting romantics on February 14! To enhance your candlelit Valentine's dinner in a dimly lit restaurant, add some contrast to your photos!

8. A decoration for the occasion?

Yes, just a few elements are enough to create a real Valentine's atmosphere. Flowers and candles alone are enough to immerse your space in an atmosphere worthy of this holiday. But you can of course look for more innovative inspirations, on Pinterest in particular.Best Practice: Setting up your decoration and its final result provides you with ideal content to create a Reel on Instagram! The restaurant at the La Réserve palace had created an atmosphere in Valentine's Day colors to attract lovers. So how do you project your message to potential customers and convert them? Through the hotel's Instagram pageposts and an anchored story highlighted the February 14 offer.

9. A musical atmosphere?

To create a sensory experience on every level! Jazz, piano, opera... Bringing in artists requires a small investment but represents real added value! And a lever for your visibility afterwards. Customers love live cooking and live music, and love taking video/photos of it for social media. Best Practice: Chez Eugène restaurant invited Valentine's Day fans to share an ideal program. A champagne aperitif and a special menu, to be enjoyed to the rhythm of a live concert of French and international variety, followed by Italian love songs by a DJ. If your budget doesn't allow it, don't hesitate to simply play a special Valentine's Day playlist!

Boost, shine and maximize your offer

10. Little touches?

Cocktails, glasses of champagne, appetizers, desserts... offering something that's not included in the menu is bound to please your customers. Surprising them creates even more effect and happiness! You can also include little extras during dinner! In your communication, keep the suspense of your gifts alive by using wording like "And what if you offered him more than just dinner?

11.Why not organize a competition to win 1 meal for 2 on Valentine's Day? The perfect way to engage your subscribers and invite them to spread the word about your restaurant! Or special offers.12. Deliver Valentine's Day?Some Valentine's Day enthusiasts prefer to spend it in the privacy of their own homes. Don't forget them! You can offer a special "box" to be enjoyed at home, for an aperitif or a complete menu, with a bottle of champagne or other. Have fun with the packaging: the more original it is, the more likely these customers will come to you next time!

Hijacking the commercial aspect of Valentine's Day 2023

You don't want to celebrate Valentine's Day in your restaurant? But you'd like to use the occasion to boost your sales? Put a different spin on Valentine's Day 2023, using humor to reflect the image of your establishment. Target a different audience. A few years ago, the MOB Hotel organized a "No Jules, No Valentine" evening for singles!

Communicating is the decisive step

No matter what you do, you have to communicate about it. How else are potential customers going to find out about an exceptional, short-lived offer? Without communication, you'll miss the opportunity of Valentine's Day, and you'll have invested time and money for no 100% benefit. And if you open exceptionally on Tuesday February 14 to celebrate Valentine's Day, how will customers know? It's important to share this information, and modify your opening hours on Google My Business. After Valentine's Day, what's the next opportunity to boost your sales?Download our marketing calendar here to find out!