Restaurateurs love a Monday Valentine's Day(2)
J. J. Kingery, corporate chef of the three-unit Wild Eggs in Louisville, Ky., said he expects robust Valentine’s Day business starting on Thursday night, and Matt Accarrino, chef of SPQR in San Francisco, said the restaurant was already 95 percent booked from Thursday through Monday.
Online reservation service OpenTable confirmed that many consumers were planning to celebrate Valentine’s Day throughout the weekend.
It surveyed more than 4,000 diners, asking when they planned to dine out, on which nights and how much they planned to spend.
Nearly 90 percent of respondents said they planned to dine out for the holiday, with 30 percent planning a Saturday night celebration, compared with 39 percent who planned to eat out on the holiday itself. Fifteen percent said they’d be dining out on Sunday, and 4 percent planned Friday festivities.
Twelve percent of respondents said they’d eat out on more than one day during the weekend, but 19 percent said they wouldn’t be booking their reservations until this week.
About 90 percent said they planned to spend about the same as or more than they did last year. Most respondents, 70 percent, said they had budgeted to spend more than $100, with 12 percent expecting dinner checks to exceed $200.
Jeff Wyatt, owner of Marche Bacchus French Bistro & Retail Wine Shop in Las Vegas, said having Valentine’s Day on a Monday helps attract customers for the entire weekend, including Sunday brunch and dinner.
“We also expect to benefit from enhanced patron volume on Thursday, as some individuals may want to celebrate on a less crowded evening, and Thursday is interpreted by many as the buffer day for the weekend,” he said.
Nancy Oswald, an Atlanta-based owner of nine restaurants across the Southeast, said that Monday and Thursday tended to be the best days for Valentine’s Day.
“When February 14 falls immediately preceding the weekend or immediately following it, the Valentine’s Day celebration is stretched over the corresponding three days,” she said. “From a restaurant operations perspective, this allows us the opportunity to accommodate an increased number of guests.”
Oswald said that doesn’t tend to work for Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
“It appears that the majority of Valentine couples are not as willing to stretch the celebration past the weekend much more than a day either way,” she said. “Valentine’s Days that fall on Tuesdays and Wednesdays are traditionally celebrated primarily on those days.”
