Continue to Site

How to increase dine in lunch traffic?

T

Tony_Maronni

New member
Hello everyone. We have a great business in the aspect of delivery and carryout for both our lunch time and dinner times, but I can’t seem to get guests in our dining room during lunch time. Our dining room is very nice with one wall being a mural of a rolling Italian landscape and the other with the building red exposed brick, Italian music on, real nice, seating for 40, but hardly no tables being served. We offer hot Italian bread and a small house salad with every purchase at both lunch and dinner. What should we do to increase our dine in lunch business?
 
Last edited:
Lunch business is something that has been discussed a lot because it is a challenge. We used to have a sandwich board by the street that offered a lunch special. We also served pizza by the slice which made it easy for people on a budget. You could make up box toppers with lunch special on it. In your advertising, you can offer a grouping of like a salad, entree and a beverage for so much. It would not be a special price, but it does seem to help draw people in. You can also offer coupons for a free something only available during lunch. Another option could be to have an ala carte menu for lunch to reduce costs and offer the guest with something different at lunch versus dinner.
 
Last edited:
If your market for lunch includes business people, the keys are simple and fast. A pizza buffet can be good.

Professional people going out for regular lunch want some lighter options and they need to do lunch in 50 minutes door to door which means you need to have food in front of them in under 10 minutes. Also, for many price is an issue. Not many people want to spend over $15 including tax and tip for a regular lunch. On the other hand, if you can get some local office people coming in you may see them once or twice a week!
 
Last edited:
Thanks Guy’s, I was thinking about doing 50% off during 11-2 or doing something like “In and Out in 45 minutes” Guarantee. I do have a very large company 3000 employee’s per shift (Quad Grafics magazine printer) but they have 3 large cafeiteria, so that’s tough to break into being that they get employee discounted food. But a lot of other corp parks around that we could do business with.
 
Last edited:
I’ve been struggling with lunch for 30 years.
Very location/demographic specific but I’ve never won the struggle.
And when I have “won” it… I really haven’t because it’s “free” this and “half-price” that, etc
I think at some point (your situation excluded) the best win for lunch is to not even deal with it.
I do lunch (del & pup-no dine-in) 7 days/week and Mon-Thursday is a nightmare.
Some days are decent but some horrid and, yes, prep- being available for large orders other days or at night is a plus but… net-net… I will close Mon-Wed soon.
 
Last edited:
i’ve struggled with the lunch issue for 29 yrs, for 25 years we did a lunch special , all you can eat salad bar with a mini 8" or sandwich for 5.75 - 6.75 , one in 5 days we would be packed, other days very slow, finally figured out i was spinning my wheels for nothing (slow learner!), now i’ve raised prices to 8.95, open 11:30- 1:00, thur fri sat , life is much easier, labor much lower, net much better , July and 1st half of august, we will be open all day every day, same with xmas vacation, it has been much more profitable with these hours, get when the gettins good !!!
 
Last edited:
i’ve struggled with the lunch issue for 29 yrs, for 25 years we did a lunch special , all you can eat salad bar with a mini 8" or sandwich for 5.75 - 6.75 , one in 5 days we would be packed, other days very slow, finally figured out i was spinning my wheels for nothing (slow learner!), now i’ve raised prices to 8.95, open 11:30- 1:00, thur fri sat , life is much easier, labor much lower, net much better , July and 1st half of august, we will be open all day every day, same with xmas vacation, it has been much more profitable with these hours, get when the gettins good !!!

Agree 1000%
Yes, yes, yes.
You know what always amazes me? I used to open at 4pm- then my “business partner” (that’s code for greedy franchisor) required me to open for lunch.
We used to start getting busy at 4pm and now, 5+ years later, we stand around burning labor, gas, electricity from 10:30am on and we get busy at… 4pm.
There’s no easy or correct answer but I think the above poster and I agree that, at some point, the best way out of a hole is to STOP DIGGING.
 
Last edited:
When we bought the store, we opened at 10am. Between that and delivery in our rural area, it just sucked the money down the drain. We tried it for a year. By then I had data to go on that showed that we didn’t really start doing much business until 4pm. So we switched and it made an instant impact. We have a few people grumble from time to time because we are also a carryout. But most of those lost sales are things like cigarettes that we don’t make much profit on. Other things that have a decent return like single 20oz pop sales don’t add up to enough total sales to justify the extra labor and utilities. A pop machine outside has covered that nicely.

As our kitchen expands, I have kicked around the idea of trying again. The biggest factor I think for a lunch is speed, followed by price. I don’t think people want to sit and wait 15-20 mins, especially for a whole pizza (even a small) on a lunch break. It’s can be a little pricey too. I’m thinking slices are a good way to go. Or I’m planning to add burgers and fries or wings or things that can be on the table in under 10 mins. We’ll see how it goes. But I think even with business customers, speed and quality are the way to go.

Another avenue could be delivering to offices. Have a simple way for a large number of people to place orders and have it either delivered or just have one person pick it up. Or reaching out to people who do lunch meetings and want a place to bring clients or potential clients. Those would be my ideas if I lived in a area with more traffic.
 
Last edited:
We too have struggled with lunch business over the past 15 years. 7-8 years ago we made the decision to not open for lunch on Mon-Weds and we at 3:30. We are open all day for the remaining 4 days of the week. We made up some lunch specials that have the tax factored in the price so that they cost an even amount (e.g. $6, $7.50…etc.) We made up a fax ordering form for multiple orders and distributed them to the 15 schools in our area. We mailed out our little packet with the lunch flyer, a couple of fax order forms, and a free mini pizza coupon for their first order. The free mini pizza coupon was included as an incentive for the person who opened the envelope to not just throw it away, but to entice them to get a group together to order lunch and they would get their pizza free. The form makes it easy for everyone’s order and collecting the money because they know exactly how much they owe. It’s worked out great for us and we are hoping to expand it to other businesses in our area. Our Thursday and Friday lunches are now really good and we usually need at least 2-3 drivers and a couple of pizza makers to handle the business. We now have our Monday-Wednesday mornings free to get other things done without having to worry about the business.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top