7 Secrets to Restaurant Event Planning That Set You Apart

Restaurant events are more than revenue drivers—they’re brand builders. From loyalty-only wine tastings to full-venue buyouts, planning the right event helps you stand out, fill slow nights, and deepen guest relationships. This article shares seven proven event planning secrets that keep your calendar full and your guests coming back.

7 Secrets to Restaurant Event Planning That Set You Apart 

Restaurants that create memorable events typically see higher customer lifetime value than those that don’t. Many restaurant owners treat event planning as an afterthought, which could be a missed opportunity for many businesses.  

Restaurant event planning isn’t like throwing a kid’s birthday party; it’s a tool that can increase average restaurant sales, build loyalty, and more.  

In this guide, we cover important aspects of restaurant event planning, including how to do it, what tools to use for a successful event, and how to set yourself apart.  

What Is Restaurant Event Planning? 

Restaurant event planning is a tactic for business owners to engage customers in local events, increase brand awareness, drive revenue, and show appreciation for loyal members. It’s the perfect opportunity for restaurants to showcase everything from seasonal menus to a marketing team's creativity.  

The Scope of Today’s Restaurant Events 

Business owners and marketing teams can create restaurant events to engage guests and increase local support for the business. Popular restaurant events (in 2025) can include:  

• Private dining 
• Cooking classes 
• Mystery dinners 
• Holiday experiences  
• Drink workshops 
• Trivia nights  
• Buyouts for corporate or personal events  
• Brunch series  
• Seasonal pop-up bars 
• Collaborations with other restaurants/bars/chefs 

Why Events Matter More Than Ever 

Restaurants often compete for the same guests, meaning events can help you gain the edge you need.  

Restaurant events also help you diversify revenue with specialty events outside your traditional dining experience. Events can encourage loyalty, increase the lifetime value of guests, and may bring in a different clientele than your regular visitors.  

They are also a fun way to showcase your business while offering premium experiences for your top customers.  

7 Secrets to Exceptional Restaurant Event Planning 

We would never keep a secret from you. Here are the seven best tips and strategies for planning exceptional restaurant events.  

​​1. Start With a Signature Concept 

Interest, delight, and draw in your customers with a signature concept. Take your cuisine and tie it into your brand values or guest interests. Or use other novelty themes or ideas to create a unique event.  

Examples of signature concepts: Restaurant A cooks Mexican cuisine and offers its guests “Taco & Tequila Tuesdays,” where both are discounted. To top it off, they have a mariachi band during the event.  

Restaurant B is a fine dining restaurant that hosts “Chef’s Table Night” once a month. During the experience, guests get an intimate, front-row seat to the chefs' cooking and enjoy a fine dining experience with personalized service and menus.  

What will your signature concept be? The more original, the better.  

2. Tailor the Experience to Your Audience 

Everything you create for your guests should be tailored to suit their interests. This is where knowing your audience and understanding what they like is important. While we acknowledge that every type of audience may be different, there are certain core themes or strategies to create the best experiences.  

How to do it: Use d​ata from ​restaurant loyalty programs to truly cater to your audience. Design events around loyalty tiers, invite local influencers for a collab event, support businesses by hosting corporate clients for important meetings and dinners, or cater to families by hosting family-friendly events.  

3. Build in Automation for RSVPs and Reminders 

If you want more people to attend your events, make signing up easy and use restaurant advertising strategies so your audience discovers events naturally. Restaurant marketing tools like email, SMS, or apps, can help you automate invitations and reminders.  

Examples of building automation: Jackie is the social media manager at an Italian restaurant. She builds an email sequence for each event and schedules the emails to arrive at the right time before each event.  

Invitations go out two months in advance, with a reminder one month later, and a follow-up one week before the event if there are any spots left. Automation tools allow Jackie to do all the work upfront and move on to other marketing needs throughout the month.  

4. Make the Event Instagrammable 

Social media is a natural extension of any event and should be considered for your restaurant's social media marketing presence. Some of the best restaurant social media marketing are organic posts from clients, especially on platforms like Instagram. 

To put it simply, events with Instagrammable spaces get free publicity. During the event, add visual touches such as a backdrop or a staged area that allows for natural photogenic moments for your guests.  

How to do it: Add branded signage, such as neon signs or free photo booths, to encourage guests to take photos with your logo. Consider hiring a photographer for a few hours for larger or more fancy events to capture your guests having a great time and create borders around the image with your business name.  

5. Don’t Forget Pre-Event and Post-Event Marketing 

You’ll need to build awareness before your event. This step is to attract the right audience, which segues into natural post-event marketing, where you can extend the brand story after.  

Examples of pre- and post-event marketing: Restaurant C is hosting a Chef’s Table event next month. Before the event, they send out invitation emails to their customers with a small “thank you offer” for previous customers.  

After the event, the marketing team schedules feedback surveys to gather data on guests' experiences so that they can plan for the next one. They build loyalty rewards for guests who’d like to sign up for the next Chef’s Table event.  

6. Upsell Strategically 

Events are a good opportunity to upsell an upgrade to the event. This may include a VIP ticket with exclusive access to the event (before or after), add pre-paid add-ons that may include additional food, and sell exclusive merchandise. Each of these methods could increase per person spend at your event. 

Examples of upselling for events: Restaurant C hosts a yearly Murder Mystery Dinner. The evening starts when guests arrive and receive their characters. Guests can purchase upgrades such as unlimited drinks, exclusive food during dinner, and a VIP experience.   

7. Use Events to Strengthen Loyalty Programs 

Guests love to know their business is appreciated. Loyalty programs can give them bonus points, surprise perks, exclusive offers, or invites.  

Guest experience software can help you track how often they visit, their favorite food and drinks, and other noteworthy patterns. This may also show which guests would like to attend specific events.  

Example of events to support loyalty programs: Loyalty programs are already built into the dining experience at Restaurant D. They sell Thai food and have created a fun way to show appreciation for their loyalty members while increasing sales. Each year, they host an annual Thai Food Festival at their restaurant. Guests who have visited more than 10 times per year or spent more than $750 per year are eligible for a free ticket. Those who aren’t eligible for a free ticket to the festival may purchase one. 

5 Popular Types of Events That Work for Restaurants 

Popular events are popular for a reason. They’re the ones that draw in customers and engage their target audience.  

There are several types of events that you can create to engage new diners and increase brand loyalty. Here are the most popular types of events:  

1. Private Dining & Buyouts 

Private dinners and restaurant buyouts (for corporate events) are a beloved classic. They are especially popular for company celebrations such as business anniversaries, hitting target revenues, and even birthdays for CEOs.  

Birthdays and anniversaries are also special times, which, for some families, may warrant renting out their favorite restaurant for themselves or with their favorite people.  

The key to private dinners and buyouts is to make it easy for your guests to do this. Have a questionnaire, contact form, or other funnel to vet and approve these types of requests.  

2. Themed Dining Experiences 

Most audiences love an excuse to get dressed up and enjoy delicious food. Themed dining experiences lean into that desire. Ideas for themes may include seasonal tasting menus, movie and food pairings, collaborations with chefs, or go all out with a decade theme or other type of celebratory theme.  

Example of themed dining: Restaurant E is a French restaurant serving up authentic cuisine. During the month of August, their chef collaborates with a popular Asian chef to create a French-Asian fusion menu for one night only. Guests must purchase tickets in advance, and it’s first-come, first-served.  

3. Community & Loyalty Member Events 

Give back to your community while building more loyalty with special members or community events. You can offer guests opportunities such as early access tasting, local collabs, VIP nights, charity events, and hosting local groups such as yoga classes or book clubs.  

Example of loyalty member events: Reaching out to your community is the first step. Restaurant F is a local Mexican restaurant that hosts a loyalty member event every month. On the first Monday of each month, they host a VIP Tequila Night where any drink made with tequila costs $5 or less. Simple margarita mixes are $2, and they have a special menu that isn’t available during the rest of the month. The event is available to members who join their loyalty program and are at least tier two.  

4. Virtual or Hybrid Experiences 

Some guests prefer a mix of real-life and virtual experience events, especially for those who can’t make it to your brick-and-mortar store. Use cases of this flourished during the pandemic in 2020, when businesses couldn’t operate normally and had to pivot to online experiences.  

Examples of virtual experiences: A farm-to-table restaurant in Maine is open every week on Friday and Saturday. During the week, they post content sharing pictures of their farm and where each harvested item comes from. They also host cooking demos on Wednesdays for simple, plant-based meals and, during the summer, offer online classes on Sunday afternoons.  

Other restaurants follow this model and increase their sales by offering meal kits.  

5. Catering-Driven Offsite Events 

Off-site catering events are a great way to increase brand awareness while organically growing your audience. Catering software for restaurants can help you plan and coordinate large and small events.  

Popular types of catering events: Catering comes in all shapes and sizes and will likely depend on your capacity as a caterer. Large events may include festivals, offices, weddings, and trade shows, while smaller events may include bridal showers, bachelor/bachelorette parties, baptisms, and birthdays.  

3 Tools That Make Event Planning Easier 

Event planning should run smoothly. With the right tools, you can plan events and marketing strategies in a week or less. Here are the top three strategies:  

1. CRM and Guest Segmentation Tools 

Using guest segmentation and CRM tools can help you stay on top of guest preferences and experiences. With these tools, you can reach them at the right times, select the best events, and draw them back for more.  

CRM tools can tell you when customers are more likely to visit and purchase food from your business, and with this information, you can create targeted marketing for your events. They may also highlight which guests would be most interested in your event based on past visiting history.  

2. Digital Ordering and Pre-Payment Platforms 

Use digital ordering systems or pre-payment platforms to simplify RSVPs and make it easy for guests to respond. Restaurant online ordering platforms are also ideal for upselling upgrades and offering pre-event sales. 

3. Loyalty and Marketing Automation Software 

Different types of loyalty and marketing automation software allow businesses to stay on top of which customers should be rewarded. This type of software can help you build workflows for invites that go straight to your top customers, allowing for post-event follow-ups and event confirmations.  

3 Common Mistakes to Avoid 

While there are common strategies to enhance restaurant event planning, there are also complications you should avoid. Here are the top three to avoid.  

1. Failing to Set Clear Goals for the Event 

Every event should have a clear goal. Know what you’re optimizing for (retention, revenue, reach, or reviews) and how it will affect any long-term goals.  

Goals should always be measurable and use a framework such as SMART.  

2. Underestimating Staffing Needs 

Staff play an essential role when hosting events. Don’t underestimate the number of staff you’ll need; if anything, you should attempt to overestimate by a few. Most events will require staff for different roles and extra support overall.  

​​3. Not Capturing Guest Feedback or Data 

After hosting an event, ask guests for feedback. You can capture this type of feedback through post-event surveys, NPS (Net Promoter Score), or via loyalty redemption data.  

Frequently Asked Questions About Restaurant Event Planning 

Do you have more questions about restaurant event planning? If so, check out the FAQ section below!

What are the 5 Cs of event planning? 

The five Cs of event planning are concept, coordination, control, culmination, and closeout.  

How do you plan a restaurant party? 

Start planning a restaurant party by creating an outline of the event. Make a clear list of what you need, marketing strategies, size, and more. Use this information to build a clear event plan and bring help as needed.  

What are the 7 stages of event planning? 

Most events have seven stages to get them just right. These stages include creating an idea, selecting dates and a timeline, brainstorming the event and needs, building a budget, advertising and marketing, hosting the event, and evaluating it afterwards.  

What's the average size of a restaurant event party in the US? 

Restaurant event party sizes depend on many factors, such as the maximum occupancy of the restaurant, the number of staff needed, and the type of event. Sizes can range from intimate numbers of two to larger numbers of more than one to two hundred.  

Plan Events That Guests Talk About, Both Online and Offline 

Whether you’re running a single-unit concept or a multi-location brand, restaurant event planning can become a signature part of your marketing and guest retention strategy. Use these secrets to make your events unforgettable—and your brand unforgettable too. 

Want to power personalized invites, loyalty perks, and seamless event comms? Book a demo and see how Paytronix makes it simple.