Restaurateurs love a Monday Valentine's Day(3)

Some restaurants are encouraging customers to celebrate all weekend by offering special promotions. The Beehive in Boston has declared the weekend “Four Days of Luvs’n” with special menus and musical performances at brunch and dinner.

Eric Feldman, general manager of 3 Vines Café & Wine Bar in Sleepy Hollow, Ill., said he always starts promoting weekday holiday on the previous weekend.

“We run the same specials every day through the holiday. That way, rather than having only one day to create a buzz and additional business, we have three or four,” he said.

He added that he’d start providing entertainment earlier in the day this Monday, and also take reservations for earlier in the evening.

“We anticipate our guests will be departing between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m., much earlier than on the weekend, yet we will garner similar numbers due to the earlier start,” Feldman said.

Bertucci’s, a 94-unit casual-dining Italian chain based in Northborough, Mass., is offering its Valentine’s Day menu starting on Friday, including “Love Me Tender Shrimp Scampi” — sautéed in Alfredo garlic sauce for $15.99 — and a “Will You Be Mine Filet” — an 8-ounce center-cut beef tenderloin with portobello mushroom sauce, red skin mashed potatoes and asparagus for $20.99. Guests also will get a coupon for free dessert on a future visit.

But not everyone thinks a Monday Valentine’s Day is good for business. Restaurant consultant Michael Desiderio, who had been general manager or chief operating officer at Windows on the World, the Russian Tea Room and Tavern on the Green — all legendary New York venues for celebration in their day — said the Monday timing too closely follows the weekend.

“A lot of people elect to celebrate on Saturday, a night that they might have been going out anyway,” he said. “There’s something about Mondays that makes people cautious about having a big night out, because they’re very conscious of having to work the next day, in a way they don’t seem to be later in the week.”

So at Ponte’s an Italian restaurant in New York where he currently is consulting, he’s offering Valentine’s Day options on both Saturday and Monday.