How To Provide Top-Notch Takeout Experiences

When the coronavirus pandemic first hit North America a few months ago, restaurants were one of the earliest businesses to close. Due to the obvious necessity to maintain social distancing, eateries could not operate in a business as usual capacity. Naturally, patrons are seated fairly close together. All these months later, such a scenario is still not considered safe.

As a result, the majority of restaurants, throughout the continent, are offering takeout as an option. Unless your restaurant has a patio (many patios have opened), allowing your customers to order takeout is the only real choice you have to keep your business going. Now, more than ever, it’s important to provide your customers with top-notch takeout experiences. How do you go about it?

Offer freebies to your customers.

This summer will be one when one-upping the competition is an incredibly important task of yours. With takeout being the only option at a lot of restaurants, it’s wise to do a little something extra for everyone who chooses to order food from your establishment. Pop a nice freebie into your patrons’ bags in order to score points with them, suggests McCain Foodservice Trends on DennisExpress.com.

“Perhaps a cupcake on the house or a bonus onion ring, stuffed jalapeño or some potato tots with the French fries,” they suggest on the site, “It’s worth noting that packaging advances are enabling popular appetizers and bar bites like those to arrive at the customer’s door hotter and crisper.”

Create a specific takeout menu.

As you’re undoubtedly aware, some of your dishes just aren’t made to be placed in a box or a bag. So how does your takeout menu differ from your dine-in menu? Make the answer to this question very easy to locate. Utilize both your website and your social media accounts to present your restaurant’s takeout menu to the public. As well, be sure to offer both an online and over-the-phone method for ordering meals.

“The vast majority of connected-consumers make decisions about dining and takeout from information (and photos) viewed on their phones,” alerts Mike Mirarchi in a separate DennisExpress.com article, “Making your takeout menu available in a PDF format is also a nice touch, and convenient for workplace printing…Online only specials, and combo deals in print, are a great addition to takeout menus and effective at increasing order size.”

Promote a “meal for later” special.

COVID-19 is forcing many people to stay at home. So it’s a good idea to ease the burden had by the cooks of each household. While promoting your takeout menu, suggest that your patrons order a “meal for later”. In other words, create meal packages that include two or more dishes that enable people to buy lunch and dinner in one shot at a discounted rate.

“A Datassential report found 48 percent of consumers (were) interested in ordering extra entrées for later; 44 percent were interested in ordering frozen items for later,” McCain Foodservice Trends reveals.

Make the payment process super easy.

At Canadian POS, we proudly offer Canadian restaurant owners the Poynt Smart Terminal. It’s a revolutionary wireless terminal that allows you to easily accept payments for takeout orders at the point of pickup! For more information, please don’t hesitate to call us at 1-877-748-2884 or email us at info@localhost.