Celebrating Cinco de Mayo At Your Restaurant

Posted by Karen Erdelac on Apr 19, 2019

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo At Your RestaurantCinco de Mayo, or the fifth of May, is a holiday that celebrates the date of the Mexican army's 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War.”  It’s also a great time for a restaurant fiesta!  While Cinco de Mayo is centered around Mexico, people from all backgrounds choose to participate in the celebration.  It can be an extremely profitable day for your restaurant, if done properly.

Menu

There are a seemingly endless number of popular Mexican dishes that you can serve during your Cinco de Mayo celebration.  This includes tamales, churros, red rice and chicken with mole sauce.  You may even want to take it a step further by setting up a build your own taco or burrito station.  This will give your guests a chance to interact with each other and choose their own flavors.  For the beverages, you’ll want to have plenty of tequila, Modelo and Corona available to bring a bit of authenticity to the celebration.

Decorations

Flying the Mexican flag and having green, white and red streamers is a good place to start, but there are several other items you can use.  Piñatas that can be used for contests and maracas can be placed throughout your establishment to add to the festive vibe.  Just remember to be respectful with your décor.

Promotion

It’s impossible to have a successful event if nobody knows about it.  The marketing aspect is extremely important and will strongly impact attendance.  Promotion should begin at least a month prior to your event and should be done through several channels.  Social media is one of the best ways to spread the word and should be used heavily.  Facebook and Twitter should be posted to daily with photos of past events, your slate of entertainment as well as the menu and pricing.  Encourage your followers to share your event by offering incentives.  You will also want to promote your event within your establishment.  You should have posters and flyers in strategic spots and have your servers mention the event to each table.  This is also an opportunity to offer discounted tickets for early purchase if your event is going to require an entry fee.  Networking with local press and other business owners will also help to draw attention and encourage community participation.

Entertainment

This is potentially the biggest draw for your event and a good portion of your budget should be placed on entertainment.  While it’s not necessary to go out and hire a band with worldwide recognition, you should do some research and find local entertainers that have proven to bring their own crowd.  You will want to make sure their genre aligns with your current customers and those you’re trying to attract.  While music is a popular choice you will also want to include other forms of entertainment that creates engagement with your guests.  This can include eating contests, raffles, costume contests and anything else that encourages your patrons to get involved.  Creating memories is what will develop loyal customers.  If you run a family-oriented restaurant be sure to include things that will involve the kids such as face painting or bounce houses.

Staffing

During an event it’s important that the quality of service you provide does not suffer regardless of the number of attendees.  This may involve hiring additional and temporary staff.  With so many people getting together it may also be necessary to hire security to ensure your event remains safe for all of your visitors.  You will want to make sure your staff is prepared to handle the event and additional training may also be advantageous.  Making sure they know what to expect and how to handle every situation will reduce stress and ensure you employees contribute to the success of your event rather than hindering it.  Make sure you have a clear escalation process for any questions or complaints that your floor workers may not be qualified to handle.

Restaurants

Topics: Holiday