What are the first five events that come to mind in the list of holidays? Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year, Easter, and Mother’s Day would be the ones that make most of the lists. However, there is one holiday that equally deserves more attention and time – Father’s Day. 

Falling on the third Sunday of June in most countries (USA, UK, Singapore, Philippines, China, South Africa, etc.) Father's Day evokes a strong sentiment among families and is celebrated more zealously than expected. Just like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day is just one of those events in the year that sees people go out for dinners, feast at home, and do a lot more to celebrate their dads, uncles, grandfathers, and fathers-in-law.

There are many promotional strategies that restaurants can follow to attract guests on Father’s Day. Here are some of them:

1. Launch a Father's Day social media or EDM campaign

By planning a social media campaign or EDM marketing early, restaurants can encourage advanced bookings to ensure a smooth booking process for guests. Restaurants should find out if their restaurant reservation system has some prepayment and cancellation features to avoid no-shows or last-minute cancellations, which can severely affect a restaurant's profit.

With early bookings, restaurant operators can also get hold of crucial guest data such as customer preferences – information that can help front-of-staff provide personalized hospitality to guests during their time at the restaurant.

Learn more: Spice up your sales: 5 cutting-edge restaurant marketing strategies for 2024 | How to run successful EDM marketing campaigns with TableCheck EDM

2. Make them feel like VIPs: Prepping customer service for Father's Day

Restaurants need to ensure there's adequate staffing to handle the surge of customers and orders. From greeting celebrants in the right way to having the proper dining service etiquette, front-of-staff should be trained in all these aspects to guarantee the quality of service. Going the extra mile will also provide dads a memorable dining experience and they may be coming back for more for future celebrations.

Learn more: Master the restaurant floor plan | The power of VIPs and gourmet foodies

3. Manage your waitlist during peak times

While restaurants need to promote their events in advance, some guests make last-minute decisions to book or find themselves queuing to find a seat in their favorite restaurants.

For hospitality operators, here's a chance to show their Father's Day guests that they have an extra feature to make guest visits much more memorable. By using a waitlist management system like TableCheck Waitlist Management, walk-in guests can book tables using their own devices. Dads and their families can freely roam or opt to stay in the restaurant bar – an opportunity for restaurant staff to offer them signature drinks or cocktails while they wait for an email or SMS notification informing them that their tables are now ready.

4. Make it a Father's Day family celebration

Father's Day also means family time. Offering special prix fixe menus that not only cater to dads but to the whole family can surely help boost restaurant sales. Upselling items that complement these set menus such as drinks and appetizers can also add up to better profit.

Learn more: Restaurant upselling: Strategies, tactics, dos and don'ts

5. Hold a Father's Day special brunch

A Father’s Day brunch is an excellent idea for restaurants that already have an existing menu for weekends. Adding a few dishes plus a minor change in décor plus social media activity can make for a wonderful promotional technique that attracts a large number of customers.

Restaurants should look at the data to get an insight into what meals were consumed more in previous celebrations like Mother's Day and apply their knowledge to create the best Father's Day celebration. Business analytics tools like TableCheck Insight, which is part of the core package of the TableCheck platform allow hospitality operators to see trends and patterns in their industry.

6. Host an outdoor feast

Father’s Day falls during summertime and no other weather is better to host an outdoor feast with bright sunshine and a breeze blowing. If a restaurant has an open-air space, hosting an evening on Father’s Day with outdoor seating and special décor will attract a large number of customers to a restaurant or café. Not only this, an outdoor feast acts as a great PR move for the restaurant as it shows scale on logistical and culinary levels.

7. Draw a sports connection

June is a month full of sporting action and a large portion of the father community revels in its love for the sport. Hosting a sporting event screening on Father’s Day with special discounts on drinks and food is a sure-shot bet for success in terms of revenue and marketing. If a restaurant happens to be in a town that is home to a particular team (football, baseball, or basketball), having a screening of that team itself makes things more attractive. 

8. Focus on takeout speed

A lot of families prefer staying home on a Sunday and ordering a takeout menu, which makes the speed of delivery paramount for restaurants. If any restaurant publicly promotes its quality and speed of delivery around Father’s Day, the result could be large volumes in terms of sales and even good quality publicity.

9. Drinks and Dads together forever

Father’s Day gives a great opportunity for restaurants and bars to bring together families in a way never seen before. A great way to attract families with fathers is having a well-curated drinks menu, which is not only elaborate but also well-priced. Discounts on beer buckets and cocktails in large quantities can attract a lot of customers to the restaurant.

10. Add gifts to meals

Souvenirs play a great role in ensuring customer retention, especially in restaurants. There are a lot of ways in which Father’s Day merchandise can be distributed along with meals by restaurants. Be it a mug, keychain, pen, or a simple fridge magnet, a small gift can go a long way in promoting a restaurant and making it popular on a special occasion like Father’s Day. In addition to making fathers feel special, gifts bring about excitement in children who come to dine at restaurants as well.

11. Offer special discounts for grandpas

Grandfathers are special and they deserve special treatment on Father’s Day. They have successfully seen two generations enter this world and making a story out of that while trying to marry Father’s Day with meals can be a great idea. Grandfathers are likely to be accompanied by their children and grandchildren, thereby directly increasing the restaurant’s revenue on Father’s Day. Offering special discounts to grandfathers makes a lot of sense and is a great promotional technique.

12. Host a Father’s Day quiz

Everybody loves a good old pub quiz. One of the best ways to bring a community together in a restaurant is by having an interactive session in any form and nothing is better than a quiz. The age-old tradition of people participating in a pub quiz can be used well on Father’s Day where restaurants can get their customers to compete against each other in a quiz while also ensuring there is an incentive at the end of it. The prize could be a trophy, a bucket of beer, or a free meal.

Father’s Day, sometimes, gets neglected on the marketing calendar of restaurants but many don’t realize what an incredible opportunity it presents to a dining establishment. Maybe it’s not as emotional as Mother’s Day but the festivity around it is quite undeniable. Right from social media to local communities, Father’s Day creates a significant amount of buzz among people. Therefore, restaurants must add this holiday to their marketing calendar and consequently, make good revenue.

With TableCheck, restaurants can manage online reservations and optimize their operations to provide award-winning service during Father's Day.

This article was first published in June 2022 and updated in May 2024