10 Killer Restaurant Grand Opening Ideas That Work

The restaurant business is one of the most popular and difficult businesses around the world. You have to ensure the food served in front of customers tastes delicious and that particular food item is safe to consume. You have to serve delicious food to increase the crowd in your establishment, at the same time you need to maintain food safety to avoid any legal issues. For cooking tasty food you need an experienced chef. And we all know that experienced chefs are extremely expensive to hire. But you need to keep the price of food items low. Everything is tricky when it comes to the restaurant business. You need to maintain the right balance to ensure success. When you are just starting a restaurant business, you need to be more careful.

A new restaurant opening is not an easy task. You need to work very hard to make sure everything is perfect. After days of hard work when everything is finally ready, you need some amazing restaurant grand opening ideas to ensure a good start. Keep reading this article as we are going to discuss some terrific ideas for a restaurant grand opening that draws the attention of people and increases the crowd in your eatery and helps you make good revenue on the very first day of your restaurant opening.  

Restaurant Grand Opening Ideas [10 Exclusive Tips]

Sadly many restaurant businesses are forced to shut down in their first year of launch. About 6 of 10 restaurants face this kind of failure. And the reason behind this failure is that they fail to generate customers who keep coming back, bring new customers for you like bringing their friends and family, spread good things about your restaurant which is great marketing for your restaurant. As they are paying you to buy food from your eatery and then they go out and tell other people how amazing your place is. A restaurant grand opening is not just about launching your restaurant business. It is an important marketing strategy that ensures the early success of your eatery.

Not only do you need to bring a big crowd to your restaurant but also you need to be prepared to serve that crowd and make sure they are having a great time. So that they keep coming back. You need to ensure delicious food is served and quality service is provided. Let’s look at some amazing restaurant grand opening ideas to create a buzz in your restaurant on the very first day of your opening.

1. Bring Influencers to You Restaurant

What can generate bigger buzz in your restaurant that an influencer with huge followers on social media? Imagine a scenario, “Adam Levine” is singing “Suger” while dessert is served in front of you. Will you leave that opportunity to have that amazing moment? No right? Same goes for your customers. You can invite celebrities or influencers with a big fanbase to the grand opening of your restaurant. And if you can’t afford big-budget celebrities don’t panic. You can invite local influencers or a food blogger to your restaurant. Inviting influencers is one of the cool ideas among restaurant grand opening ideas.  

Once they visit your place make sure to be prepared to squeeze the last drop of juice out of them. Arrange a photo booth with your restaurant logo where your customers can take pictures with the influencer. Everyone will have a great time and will share their picture with the influencer on their social media accounts like Facebook. It will work as free marketing for your restaurant.

2. Throw Party and Create an Amazing Customer Base

Think about it, why would people care and make time out of their busy day to visit your restaurant on the very first day of launching? It’s your big day, not theirs. Why should anyone care? What will they receive in return if they visit your restaurant on the opening day? That’s the reason, you need to think of something amazing. You have to be unique and you must stand out from the crowd. You don’t want to be like 10 other existing restaurants in the town.

So think out of the box and plan something fantastic which is something people enjoy and can give your customer a good time. That’s when people will be attracted to your eatery and make time out of their busy day to visit your restaurant. For example, an epic party. Who wouldn't love to attain a party after a frustrating busy day for refreshment? And make sure they get the refreshment they expected from your place. Throwing a party is the most epic idea among all the restaurant grand opening ideas.

Arrange some colorful flashy lights, fun games, bring a DJ and play cool music, make sure to arrange some crazy rides, make an event that looks like a festival or something like a carnival, arrange a magic show or any kind of live entertainment. 

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3. Partner With a Charity Organization

You can brainstorm and think as wild as possible to make your restaurant's grand opening idea as unique as possible. After all, you must stand out of the crowd and give your competitors a worthy opponent to compete with. You can trigger people’s passion by partnering with a charity organization. This is a meaningful idea among restaurant grand opening ideas. 

Your restaurant’s grand opening should mean something. So you can partner with an already established charity foundation or you can raise a fund yourself for a meaningful reason. 

Such as feeding 100 homeless people, raising 10K for a cancer fund, raising a fund to plant 1k plants to make the planet earth evergreen, and many more.

People care and support this type of charity work. It will also create a great reputation for your business. Partnering with a charitable organization or raising a fund for a worthy cause, whichever you choose will draw the attention of the people who care and want to spend money supporting good causes. And also it will help you create a good relationship and understanding with the community. Not to mention your client base will grow automatically. 

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4. Announce an Exciting Give-Away

Well, who doesn’t want an exciting prize just by eating a meal in a restaurant? Well, if you are out of restaurant grand opening ideas, then consider announcing an exciting giveaway. But the prize should be something unique and within your budget but have to be something big.

Grand opening giveaway ideas should be very unique. Examples are something like an all-expense trip to the Maldives for a couple for a week or a pair of diamond rings for a couple. Think of something exciting and fun plus unique which will bring you in front of your customer and help you create a big client base and good reputation. Make sure whatever prize you are planning to giveaway is grand but doesn't hurt your pocket.

5. Send Invitation to Be a Part of an Experience

You can invite your people to visit your restaurant on the opening day to be a part of an exciting experience. This is a great restaurant grand opening idea. That experience can be a publicity stunt like a parade, inviting the local artists to show off their art in your restaurant, an announcement of breaking a world record, etc. People will gather in huge numbers to be a part of that experience. Whatever you do, don’t forget to keep in mind that you have a budget. Don’t exaggerate anything and go beyond your grand opening budget. It might be harmful to you in the long run. 

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6. Give a Tribute

The restaurant grand opening ideas list of your restaurant can be enlarged with another amazing idea. That is honoring a group of a specific community of people. For example retired army, firefighters, etc. If your budget is low, you can honor a single person from that particular community. You can give tribute to an individual or a group of people on the very first day of your restaurant launch. This is one of the best restaurant grand opening ideas.

You can invite them as a group or as an individual and offer them free food or give them a huge discount. Take pictures of them and place the picture on the wall of your restaurant. This attitude of yours will make those people feel valued and they will keep coming to your eatery. 

Share this on your social media accounts. And you can create big publicity for your restaurant. We all know how great the importance of social media for restaurant business promotion is. People of that particular group will start visiting your place more and more after seeing your social media post about honoring that particular group of people or an individual person from that community. People who don’t belong to that community but care about them and believe that the community should be treated with respect will also be drawn to your restaurant.

7. Serve Free Food and Give Vouchers

Who doesn’t love to get free food? Well everyone does. Another fantastic idea for the restaurant's grand opening is serving free food and giving exciting vouchers. For example, you can announce to give free food to 100 people or customers who visit your restaurant first every week or month or year. You can also do it another way. Which is serving a free drink or a free dessert or a side to everyone at your grand opening. People will start to warm up your eatery with their presence once they hear about the chance to get free food.

Preparing your stock and staff for that blast should be among one of the priorities on your restaurant grand opening checklist. And give good quality and quantity of food and service to people who get the free food. They will remember the taste of delicious food you served on their plate which will make them keep coming back not to get free food but also to purchase a meal. Also, a cherry on the cake will be if you can provide them with good service along with free food. Customers will be delighted with your amazing hospitality.

You can also ensure your customers keep coming back not only for opening but also usually by providing them vouchers. They would come back to use vouchers. These vouchers should have an amazing grand opening discount. Such as 35 to 70 percent off the total bill and free dessert or drink. Like free dessert for a couple or free drink for a whole family or a group of friends.

8. Choose a Special Holiday for the Grand Opening

Nothing can bring a big crowd to your eatery more than a holiday. One universal truth about holidays is people visit restaurants to have a meal with their friends and family. Why not take that opportunity to launch your restaurant?

You can plan to launch your restaurant on a special holiday. All you need to do is, come up with some restaurant grand opening event ideas. Such as launching your restaurant on the first day of the year or new year's eve, Valentine's day, Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas, etc. You can give special offers, discounts and free food on your opening day. Like up to 50 percent off every item, free drink with a burger, free dessert with a set meal, buy one get one free, etc.

You can also arrange theme-based special offers and parties on holiday. For example, you can give a buy one get one set meal for couples on valentines day. Or you can give a special free drink or dessert to every couple who comes to visit your restaurant on Valentine’s day. You can also decorate your restaurant with red and white balloons and arrange candles on every table. You can arrange a custom party on Halloween and give a spooky look to your restaurant. And you can also give special free treats to every customer who visits your restaurant that day. And if you plan to open your restaurant on Christmas day, give a special gift to every customer who comes to have a meal that day. This way you can generate a massive crowd in your restaurant on the very first day.

9. Arrange a Food Challenge

How do you have a good grand opening? If this question is still haunting you then arrange a food challenge in your restaurant on the launching day. People love to take food challenges. For this reason, food challenges are extremely popular. And arranging a food challenge will draw many people’s attention and they will surely visit your place to just take a food challenge.

This is a great opportunity to make good revenue and also spread the popularity of your restaurant. Besides revenue and spreading popularity, you can make people taste the food items of your restaurant. And if the customer likes your food’s taste, they will keep coming to have food from your restaurant week after week.

You can arrange food challenges such as 30 minutes to finish a huge beef ribs platter. And the winner gets free food or a side or dessert or drink. Or you can give cash gifts or t-shirts, backpacks or something exciting.  You can also set conditions like if anyone finishes a particular meal in 30 minutes gets a t-shirt. And if someone finishes it in 20 minutes they get headphones. Whoever finishes the same meal in 10 minutes gets a smart device. You can give other types of exciting food challenges like unlimited burgers for an hour or unlimited chicken fries for an hour but customers have to pay a little amount of money to join the challenge.

10. Do Something Unique

At your restaurant’s grand opening you can come up with some unique restaurant grand opening ideas. Such as offering people who are born in the 90s free food or arranging a unique fun game where people get the chance to win free food or get exciting discounts, decorating the restaurant with a unique theme, etc. People get drawn by unique things. So make your imagination the only limit and come up with some unique grand opening ideas. But don’t forget to keep the budget in mind.

Conclusion

You have to plan something unique, exciting, and fun to get both customers’ attention and a special place in your customer’s hearts on restaurant opening day. If you don’t want to be one of those restaurants that don't last the year they launched. Then don't go for last-moment plans. But start preparing how you want to launch your restaurant, months before you launch your restaurant. Make sure you come up with some great restaurant grand opening ideas and everything within your restaurant staff, menu, decoration, and POS system works smoothly on the day of your restaurant’s grand opening.