New year goals

How to stand out and make 2023 your best year yet

Party time!

Whatever type of venue you have there’s something you can do for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, whether it’s providing party platters for the 31st or opening early on the 1st to supply coffee and bacon sandwiches.

As with Christmas, planning ahead and advertising your offer is crucial. If you’re hosting a party, go wild with the decorations and stock up on champagne, prosecco and sparkling white and rosé wines to cover all tastes and budgets for the party night of the year. And practise your cocktail-making skills with the help of our feature on pages 16-17.

App happy

Use technology to not only convince consumers to choose your venue but to help them decide to eat out as convenience rules. Customers want deciding, ordering and delivery to be fast and efficient. Look at how you can make this happen, be it a mobile app so customers can easily order direct to the table or a website or social media to host food ordering and delivery.

All about The Gram

Make your venue more ‘Instagrammable’ as social media continues to influence people’s decisions. Find ways to make your venue’s interior more visually pleasing to increase the frequency of social media uploads and tags, such as using floral designs or neon lights.

Focus on the presentation of your food and drinks, on plate and in displays because how an influencer takes a picture or how an operator advertises their food can seriously make a difference to people deciding what to order or where to eat – after all, we eat with our eyes.

Clean eating

Expand or introduce a vegetarian and vegan menu. Demand is not slowing and it’s the operators who embrace the trend for plantbased eating who will thrive.

Transform classic dishes into vegetarian or vegan alternatives. Offer new tastes and go big and bold on flavour, which is what consumers are looking for.

Focus on sustainability

Consider ways your business can be greener. Look at methods of reducing waste by monitoring portion sizes and the amount of food left on plates, making adjustments where necessary. Invest in high-quality reusable menus, email receipts, use washable napkins and biodegradable bin bags, install software that monitors water usage and source stock locally and in bulk.

Delivery service

If you’re not already offering a delivery service, why not? As our expert insight on page 9 explains, it could be the boost your business needs. Increasingly, we’re seeing businesses across all sectors offering faster and easier delivery options to attract customers and keep up with demand for convenience in all aspects of life. Make it your 2023 resolution to not get left behind.