Everyone wants to find the perfect place to celebrate New Years Eve. Since not everyone can fly to New York City to watch the ball drop in Times Square, you can offer an awesome way to kick off the New Year in your restaurant. To make sure you throw the biggest bash to close out 2016, here are some tips to prepare your restaurant for New Years Eve.

Get the Basics in Place

When you are planning a New Years Eve bash at your restaurant, it may be more exciting to start planning the pizzazz of the night. However, you should always start with the basics. As you are anticipating more people in your restaurant than usual, make sure you have plenty of chairs, tables, dishes, silverware, and ingredients to meet the demand.

Along with ensuring appropriate seating and dishware, you also need to secure enough hosts, servers, busboys, bartenders, and chefs on staff to meet your demand. You will especially want to focus on staffing servers, busboys, and bartenders to help keep drinks in hands and the restaurant cleaned up.

Come Up With Glittering Dishes

New Years Eve is all about the sparkle and you want to add some unique dish offerings that are not usually on your menu. Since New Years Eve is a drinking holiday, try to come up with some killer finger food appetizers that pop the taste buds and add to the elegance and glitter of New Years Eve. Try taking a twist on traditional appetizers to give it that extra special taste.

Decide on Menu and Drink Specials

Not only will your new dishes be a draw factor for guests, but you will also need to have some killer food and drink specials to get people in the door. You can offer free appetizers with a main dish purchase or extreme happy hour drink pricing. One of the best things you can do to draw people in is offer a “ticket” for all access. Not only does it make your restaurant seem like the place to be, but it also allows people to save on food and drink by entering for a low price. For example, a VIP ticket for one price may allow unlimited drinks or appetizers.

Provide Unique Party Offerings for New Years Eve

Once you get people into your restaurant for New Years Eve, you want them to have a great time! Make your party awesome with live entertainment, party blowers, festive hats and 2017 glasses, confetti, mood lighting, games, and more. When you can build cool party exclusives, everyone will have a great time and talk about doing it again next year. This allows you to secure guests for next years bash at your restaurant.

Spread the Word

Now that you have all of your party plans in place, time to spread the word about your New Years Eve bash! Try to get local sponsors for your event to add flyers in their businesses about the party. Post on your social media accounts about the party and run ads on Facebook. You can advertise a cheaper ticket price if they buy their tickets early. You can also invest in direct mail or see if you can contact local news outlets to cover a story about your New Years Eve event. Investing a little more in advertising can pay off big with a full house for your restaurant.