February 24, 2011
Sure-fire breakfast promotions don’t come along very often for full-service restaurants. Which is why we’re suggesting you jump all over the upcoming wedding of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton. It’s set for Friday, April 29 at 6 a.m. Eastern time, and a matrimony-themed breakfast and TV viewing package seems almost sure to pack them in.
Royal wedding invitations are hard to come by; just ask Barack Obama, Sarah Ferguson or anybody else who expected to get one and was left off the list. Yet international interest in the Prince William-Kate Middleton nuptials will be sky high, particularly in the U.S. This one may not reach the level of the Princess Diana/Prince Charles wedding, but we’re betting it will still be huge.
Not to stereotype too much, but if there’s ever been an event likely to draw a crowd of women to your restaurant at the crack of dawn on a Friday, this is it. Just as males will flock to your establishment to watch the Super Bowl with their pals and a crowd of like-minded others, we think you can get women to do the same for a royal wedding.
You’ll have to encourage them with a little marketing, of course, because weddings of this magnitude don’t come around very often. Your potential customers may not immediately think of this one as something they’d want to watch in a restaurant. But promise them a classy and fun time and we can see groups postponing their next ladies night out and hitting the wedding breakfast instead.
What might you provide? In addition to the requisite flat-screen TVs you may already have on hand in your bar or dining area, you’ll need a few items to make it seem like a special occasion. Consider what they’ll be doing at the New York Palace hotel in New York City on that day.
Their event kicks off at 5:30 a.m. with a coffee and tea service. The wedding starts at 11 a.m. in London, five hours ahead of New York time. So the Palace will start serving breakfast at 6 a.m. to coincide with the start of the elaborate wedding ceremony in Westminster Abbey. The finale will come at 8 a.m. with a champagne toast.
The hotel is going all out. It promises that “guests will enjoy an experience that is reflective of a wedding event with traditional celebratory elements and offerings. These include personalized place cards, elegant floral arrangements, ‘In Honour of’ printed menus, and commemorative wedding ‘favors’ (scented glass candles with an embossed crown logo).”
The menu is billed as a “traditional English breakfast.” That translates to scones with marmalade, scrambled eggs with Devonshire cream and breakfast bangers. Face it: Guests don’t have loft culinary expectations for an event serving British fare at 6 a.m. The Palace is charging $150 per person for this event, which means its food cost will be microscopic.
Granted, the surroundings at The Palace are pretty ritzy. But, still, as a one-shot boost to a day’s and week’s revenue, this one’s hard to beat.
Could you do something similar, and charge a lot less for it? Why not? The whole thing will be over in time for people go to work like a normal Friday. With proper marketing and promotion, we can see many restaurants having a lot of fun with, and profiting from, the royals’ big day.
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