Cornish Hens with Stouffer's® Marsala Sauce with Portabello Mushroom
Make Room for Holiday Plans
What images does the holiday season conjure up: glowing faces and delicious food, or frantic employees and missed opportunities? Read on for some ideas on gearing up for the holiday season ahead, without putting a lot of additional strain on your operation.
Make Your Hotel a Home-Away-From-Home for the Holidays
Many resorts and destination hotels are making an extra effort to appeal to families, vacationers, empty nesters and other customers who for whatever reason can’t or don’t want to spend the holidays at home.
For example: Meadowood, a destination resort in California’s Napa Valley, is hosting a Twelve Days of Christmas event, with star chefs from as far away as Atlanta and Sweden scheduled to prepare special wine-pairing dinners. A portion of the proceeds from the luxury event (approximately $1,000 per event per couple, including a night’s lodging) will benefit Share Our Strength.
And the Hotel Hershey in atmospheric Hershey, PA, for instance, has created an entire seasons’ worth of special events, from Gingerbread Teas to an elaborate Dickens-themed pre-Christmas weekend. Spa packages, toy drives, snowman contests, lighting displays and more turn the entire two-month period running up to Christmas into a reason so stay at the hotel. Special menus tout traditional holiday foods that most people would never think to make at home.
Special holiday meals are easier to pull off than what Meadowood and the Hotel Hershey are doing, yet still capture the holiday spirit. If you’re located in a mall or downtown shopping area, what about creating an express lunch to pull in holiday shoppers? Consider a Sunday Supper menu that represents time for family to share a relaxing meal during a busy season. Investigate Happy Hour opportunities that will attract office works who want to get together to mark the occasion.
Appeal to Locals with Convenient Foodservice Options
Holidays have always been a time when people entertain more in their homes, and with the economy as it is, this year promises to represent even more of an opportunity for catering as well as take-out.
In fact, catering is looking to be a better bet. According to the 2010 National Restaurant Association forecast, so-called social catering is set to grow 4.5% this year, outpacing onsite sales and accounting for more improvement than any other commercial service. Meanwhile, Technomic has found that 40% of respondents surveyed said they would be entertaining at home more often in 2010 than in 2009, and another 53% reported plans to entertain the same amount\.
All of which makes for a great opportunity.
Leverage your foodservice operations by appealing to locals with catering—not just as an event and dining-out destination. Many hotel operators have gotten into hybrid catering/takeout programs in which customers can pick up larger-volume amounts of some or all of their holiday meals, from a turkey or beef Wellington to hors ‘oeuvres, breads or rolls, side dishes, and desserts.
For example: At the Fairmont Radio Royal York, busy Torontonians can order an entire Turkey to Go with or without the trimmings, the day before Thanksgiving or Christmas. Sized and priced for four, eight or twelve people, the price includes delivery, and as an added incentive the hotel donates one turkey to a local food bank for every meal ordered.
Ideas for Building Your Holiday Business
- Offer a package deal for one or two nights in a room or suite (for families) along with a holiday dinner and festive breakfast the next day
- Make sure local papers and magazines know what you’ll be offering; most newspapers and city magazines do roundups of what’s going on around town during the holidays
- If you have the resources, provide delivery of platters and other self-service items; it’s a convenience to customers, and may also alleviate storage crunches on your end
- Offer fruit baskets, muffin trays, attractive boxes loaded with cookies or housemade truffles… customers are always looking for gift ideas or items to take to a hostess
Embrace Time-Saving Measures
The holidays can be an especially busy time—if you’re lucky. Now is an excellent time to turn to high-quality prepared foods and speed-scratch methods to help you and your staff get through the crunch. This is especially true if you’re ramping up your services to include takeout, holiday parties or themed dinners.
The best speed-scratch items can be true signature starters: Simply add your own ingredients and presentation flourishes to create a unique offering.
Consider gravy, the workhorse of many holiday and cool-weather menus. Start with any Trio® gravy mix and take a creative approach:
- Substitute wine, cider, stock, spirits or another liquid for the water when preparing the mix
- Add fresh herbs or spices, sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions or roasted garlic for more body and flavor
- Mix with another sauce, such as Stouffer's® Marinara, to create a rich pasta sauce
Save Even More Time with These Tips
- Investigate using texting or email to help employees schedule and exchange shifts during this busy period
- Look to prepared foods like Stouffer’s® Lasagna with Meat & Sauce or Chef-Mate® Original Chili to make it easier to offer a hot and nutritious pre-shift family meal to employees
- Use holiday-time special menus to product-test items for the rest of the cold-weather season; recipes that are big hits are or especially profitable or easy on the kitchen can become part of the regular menu
- Urge employees to stay well and help them with every possible resource: flu shots, safe work conditions, an opportunity to rotate shifts for time off. The last thing you need right now is a sick staff