Event Sales Experts with Darcy Munshower

10/25/2022

Want to know how a "Bride" cake fork cost me 3 valuable hours of my workday?!?

One of my past brides purchased stamped "Bride" and "Groom" cake forks like these and brought them to their wedding reception at our restaurant venue.

When they left the restaurant that evening, the couple left this fork behind.

The bussers came into the room after the event and cleared everything to dish, including this forgotten "Bride" fork.

The "Bride" fork went through dish and got co-mingled with all of the other forks in the restaurant.

The staff did their nightly side work, and without knowing it, rolled this "Bride" fork in a silverware roll up.

And then - unbeknownst to us - this silverware roll up just so happened to be used to re-set a table on a completely different floor in a completely different event space.

Later that week, the mother of the bride reaches out to me to tell me they cannot find their "Bride" cake fork. They tell me they must have forgotten it at the restaurant – get this – 4 whole days ago.

Unfortunately at that time, we had no clause in our contract that said that we were not responsible for client items that were left behind. And so I spent 3 hours un-rolling and re-rolling 90% of our silverware roll ups all throughout the restaurant before finding that damn fork.

3 valuable hours of my workday gone.

So please learn from my mistake, and add this clause to your event contracts now...
"[Insert Restaurant Name] will not be held liable for any personal items left at the end of the event."

Even with this contract clause, I probably would have still looked for the client's "Bride" fork. After all, we are in hospitality. But if I hadn't been able to find it in the end or truly could not have invested all the time to look for it, this clause would have helped to protect the restaurant and my time.

Photo Credit: Heidi Pauer of on

10/23/2022

Tons of restaurants with private dining have the same traditional caprese skewer featured on their hors d'oeuvres menu. Here is one of my favorite ways to offer this classic appetizer option in a fun and fresh way to ensure your restaurant's catering menu stands out in the crowd...

www.seasonedsprinkles.com/puff-pastry-caprese-cups/print/3504/

Recipe and 📷 Credit: Jenna Fletcher of

I have a serious thing for caprese. Really, I love all things caprese like fried mozzarella caprese salad. I even love caprese so much that we had it at our wedding a million years ago. Actually that’s not true. Our wedding was 11 years ago. Not a million. Just feels like a million. You know

10/20/2022

Grilled Faroe Island Salmon served with horseradish crust, tarragon quinoa, snap peas, radishes, and creme fraiche...

This is one of my absolute favorite entrees on Blackwall Hitch's current dinner menu, but how many of our patrons do you think walk through our doors having any idea what makes Faroe Island Salmon so special? My guess is almost none.

But according to research compiled by Sullivan Higdon & Sink (SHS) FoodThink, 65% of Americans want to know about where their food comes from. They want to know the backstory, from the moment that fish was caught to the moment it was prepared in your restaurant and put on their plate.

So don't hesitate to share your food's story with your customers. Tell your guests what makes Faroe Island Salmon superior to all of the other salmon out there on other restaurants' menus. These details will affect the way your patrons perceive your restaurant's brand and how much value customers associate with your menu offerings.

So for those who are curious...

According to Niels Winther, manager of the Faroese Aquaculture Association, the pristine clear waters, cool steady sea temperatures, cold tides filtering through the fjords, and constant strong currents surrounding the namesake islands - situated between Iceland and Denmark - "create a pure and pristine environment where the Atlantic salmon can thrive. But what truly makes Faroe Islands salmon stand out is the taste,” Winther says.

Who out there is a fan of Faroe Island Salmon too?

10/09/2022

How do you know what food and beverage minimum to set when a prospective event client asks about a 2023 restaurant buyout?

This question has a much more complex answer in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, so this would be my current advice to restaurant owners that have fully re-bounded or almost fully re-bounded to pre-pandemic sales volume in their market...

Step #1: Determine your pre-pandemic 2019 sales for the same exact shift that your client is looking to host their event on. For example, if they want to buy out your restaurant on the second Saturday night in May 2023, pull dinner sales for the entire restaurant on the second Saturday night back in May 2019. This will help you to quantify what Saturdays in mid-May tended to generate sale-wise in your particular restaurant concept before the pandemic closures.

Step #2: Determine the restaurant sales from the same shift in May 2022. This will help you to quantify what Saturdays in mid-May are currently generating in sales.

Step #3: Add these 2 numbers together, divide by 2 to get that average, and then add 10% to that average number. Regardless of the client's headcount, if you're closing down the entire restaurant, you need to make more money than you would have if open for just a regular sales night.

Restaurant professionals, have your stores fully rebounded to pre-pandemic sales volume yet?



PHOTO CREDIT: PHOTO BY BOKEH COMPANY, PLANNING BY FIRST LOOK EVENTS, FLORAL DESIGN BY STATICE FLORAL

10/06/2022

The way that you staff the private events at your restaurant does not have to be a cut and dry formula each and every time. Say that in your opinion, the event guest count is too small for 2 banquet servers, but too large for just 1...

Could you schedule 2 banquet servers to work the event, and also give them a small 2 or 3 table floor section that is sat after the event guests are served their main courses?

Could you schedule 1 strong veteran banquet server to work the event, and have a new up-and-coming rockstar server train on banquets alongside that veteran team member during this event?

Could you schedule 1 strong veteran banquet server and 1 of your strongest food runners to work the event as a team?

Always be thinking creatively about your staffing, especially if your restaurant is still feeling the pinch from front of house staff shortages and lots of last-minute event bookings.

Is your restaurant experiencing as many pop-up event bookings as we are?

10/05/2022

Identify your most important work, and be sure to build in time early in the day to address these particular tasks. Mentally demanding work that requires ultimate focus to complete successfully should always be done before shallower, less-intensive tasks steal your attention.

According to Cal Newport - author of "Deep Work" - it requires very little willpower to switch from a deep focus task to a shallow focus task, but it is extremely difficult to move the other direction from shallow focus to deep focus.

Newport also insists that "directed attention" - the kind of attention needed when doing deeper, more intellectual work - is a finite resource. And just like any other resource, you deplete it when you use it. So save the tasks that require less mental effort for later in the day, and carefully utilize your "directed attention" early in the day to move the needle in your work.

Who is going to add this book to their “Must Read” list?!?



PHOTO CREDIT: https://sunshine-parenting.com/

10/02/2022

Want to increase your event sales conversation rate?

Never count on your prospective clients to be as good of a sales person as you are.

I never leave it up to my prospective clients to communicate everything that I just talked to them about over the phone with their friends, family, colleagues, or bosses. If a client is calling to gather information about a possible event, but they are not the sole person making the decisions, I always, always, always send them a recap email once I get off the phone with them. This way they can forward my email right along to any other parties that are part of the decision making process. This ensures that the information they need is communicated thoroughly and correctly.

If you have a strong email template system built out, this extra step should take you less than a minute and you'll benefit immensely from the increased sales that this tactic generates.

Who is going to start implementing this sales tip this week?



PHOTO CREDIT: www.sandiegorestaurantweek.com

09/11/2022

To all the restaurant professionals out there, how spot on is this?!? 🤣

08/30/2022

Danny Meyer, the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group and the well-known restauranteur behind Shake Shack, The Modern, Gramercy Tavern, and Union Square Café, has become a pioneering leader in the hospitality industry. Meyer says that in his own hiring process, he always strives to determine the "HQ" - or "hospitality quotient" - of the candidate to gauge their inherent level of genuine hospitality.

Meyer goes on to say that six emotional skills make up a person's "HQ" including...
- Optimistic kindness,
- Intellectual curiosity,
- Work ethic,
- Empathy,
- Self-awareness,
- Integrity.

“Hospitality is a team sport,” Meyer said, so when your employees have a high "HQ", everyone benefits, including your customers.



Photo Credit: Time.com & Melissa Hom

08/24/2022

Petite waffle cones are a phenomenal way to serve a variety of really cool passed appetizers during client events. If you're looking to jazz up your passed appetizer menu offerings while being smart about your food purchasing (purchasing one waffle cone product that can be utilized for multiple menu items), feel free to grab some waffle cone passed appetizer menu inspiration here!

Petite Salad Cones
Buffalo Chicken Cones
Tuna Tartare Cones



Photo Credits: Easy Entertaining Inc. & The Knot & Marcella Treybig Photography

08/16/2022

I've become a big fan of Julie Morgenstern, an internationally renowned expert and best-selling author on time management, productivity, and organizing.

Julie firmly believes that, in addition to the time you need to do the job you were hired to do, every single worker needs 5 different kinds of time in order to bring out peak performance at work, and just thrive as a human being in general. Everybody needs time to...

Think - Not time in meetings, but time to solve problems, innovate, strategize, create, etc.

Meet - But not all day.

Respond - We need time to get back to people and respond to their questions.

Connect - Relationship building, mentorship, networking, onboarding a new hire, etc. This is about connecting human to human and getting to know each other so you don't feel that you're working in isolation.

Renew - Time to renew yourself so that you can continue delivering in your professional role to the best of your ability day after day.

Which of these 5 kinds of time do you wish you had more of these days?

08/11/2022

The "Why" of Tableside Wine Service... During seated events in which the event host is paying for the wine for their guests, tableside wine service is an amazing way to build alcohol event sales while freeing up your bartenders on busy nights at the restaurant.

The "How" of Tableside Wine Service... Simply add a wine glass to each guest place setting and have banquet staff offer wine to guests to enjoy with their meals all throughout the seated portion of the event. Ensure that your banquet servers have agreed upon just one red wine and one white wine to offer tableside. There is nothing worse than topping off a guest's glass of cabernet sauvignon with pinot noir. Furthermore, if the banquet servers ask, "Would you like wine with your meal?" they've given the guest the opportunity to say "no" which will hinder sales. Instead of asking a "yes" or "no" question, coach your banquet staff to ask guests "Would you prefer red wine or white wine with your meal?" No matter how the guest answers - red wine or white wine - it's a positive, sales-building outcome for the restaurant.