Open on Thanksgiving and Christmas?
Notify Your Customers As Early As One Month Before!

If you decide to open your restaurant on Thanksgiving and/or Christmas, you should inform your customers at least a month in advance.
Your decision should be based on a few different factors, such as who you are targeting, and where your restaurant is located. While high end restaurants usually close on these holidays, smaller independent restaurants can take advantage of extra business. In metropolitan areas where immigrant populations are large,
there is a large portion of the population staying in town during the holidays.
Restaurants that open during that season will get a good share of the business.
Offering attractive special menus may result in securing early reservations and ensuring that you will be busy.

To Cook at Home or Not on Thanksgiving?
Customers Enjoy Restaurant Meals at Home.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are gathering occasions.
Your restaurant can offer takeout meal solutions for those who want to impress peers with fancy, professionally-prepared foods or for those who are too busy to cook. Upscale grocers like Whole Foods and Bristol Farms are already after those customers with takeout Thanksgiving meals.
Pre-ordered packaged banquets are in high demand during the holiday season

Be More Creative!
Boost Your Sales with Seasonal Offerings.

In Japan people love to eat "shun" or "now-in-season” foods.
Be creative and add seasonal flavors to your dishes.
Offer limited-time-only menus featuring seasonal ingredients such as fresh fish air-shipped from Japan, fresh oysters, fragrant Matsutake mushrooms, Beaujolais Nouveau, venison, and truffles. You can also come up with cold weather dishes like Hot & Spicy Specials, Nabe (hot-pot), and O-den.
For the younger crowd, caviar, truffles, foie gras and champagne might be a good draw for Christmas gatherings. By offering rare and exotic items that customers cannot have at home, they will feel justified in visiting your restaurant, resulting in higher added sales. Special cocktails and wines or sake pairings with the meal will boost alcohol sales, too.

Guarantee Your Holiday Sales with Set Menus.

If your restaurant has mailing lists, utilize them to encourage early reservations for Christmas parties and other special occasion gatherings.
Other effective ways to draw customers are advertisements in local papers, in-store posters,inserts in your regular menu, or printed brochures, if you have a promotional budget. If you are after corporate Christmas parties, you should start informing target customers more than a month before the occasion.
A discount and/or free drinks tagged to early reservations can be used to secure bookings. For corporate parties, prepare set menus with different budgets in mind.
Typically set menus for parties are constructed with two or three appetizers and choices of main courses and desserts. Set menus can guarantee minimum sales and are efficient to serve large numbers of people with reduced difficulty.
Be sure to send a confirmation letter to clarify the terms and avoid last minute cancellations.

Take Care of Customers This Year and They Will Be Back Next Year!

End of the year parties or New Year’s celebrations tend to be informal and casual compared to Christmas parties, and restaurants will do better catering to younger crowds for these events. Be imaginative and create a festive atmosphere for customers. For example, offering rare and interesting sake, high end champagnes,
or party-sized appetizer plates can lead to a perfect atmosphere for customers to commemorate the special occasion. Christmas cards can be used as a direct marketing tool to promote New Year’s sales. Small gifts to mark the occasion may give your customers a good impression of your restaurant, too. Taking extra care of customers who came during December may lead to their repeat visits for New Year’s gatherings. Free drink coupons with New Year’s expiration dates may encourage return visits, too.